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THE LIBRARY 
OF 
THE UNIVERSITY 


OF CALIFORNIA 
LOS ANGELES 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2007 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/democracyorganiz01 ostriala 


DEMOCRACY 


AND THE 


ORGANIZATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES 


DEMOCRACY 


AND THE 


ORGANIZATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES 


BY 


M. OSTROGORSKI 


IN TWO VOLUMES 


VOL. 1 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 


BY: 


FREDERICK CLARKE, M.A. 


FORMERLY TAYLORIAN SCHOLAR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 


WITH A PREFACE BY 


THE RIGHT HON. JAMES BRYCE, M.P. 


AUTHOR OF ‘‘ THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH ”’ 


New Work 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Lr. 
1902 


ig: All rights reserved 


COPYRIGHT, 1902, 


By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Norwood JPress 
J. 8. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 


College 


Co fav Father 


M. 


1369924 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 


PREFACE BY JAMES Bryce, M.P. . F : 5 5 ‘ 2 O60 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE . : ; Z ‘ Z 


The problem of Government raised by the advent of demo- 
cracy in face of the severance of the old social ties and the 
supremacy accorded to numbers in the State. Attempt at 
solution offered by extra-constitutional organization of the 
electoral masses. Scientific and practical importance of 
the study of this attempt. Why England is the best start- 
ing-point for that study. General plan of the work 5 


FIRST PART 


FIRST CHAPTER 


Tue Oxup Unity ‘é s ‘ : ‘ 7 é , 


I. A single ruling class. The sources of its power. The landed 
property of the squires, the influence which they derive from 
it, and the public authority which they exercise. United by 
the feelings summed up in the idea of gentleman, they alone 
constitute society. Although exclusive, it is not closed to 
outsiders. Subject to this limitation it holds undivided 
sway, and meets with no opposition in the middle class, 
sunk in a dull life and unconscious of its strength; nor 
among the lawyers, confined to the exercise of their pro- 
fession, which is kept alive by aristocratic clients; nor in 
local self-government, which is devoid of vitality; nor 
among the clergy, who, by their origin, aspirations and 
tastes constitute only a branch of the ruling class 

II. The structure of the body politic exhibits the same unity under 
another aspect. The whole hierarchy of institutions and func- 
tions is built up in such manner that local administration, as 
well as the central government and even the government of the 
Church, are exercised by the same men. The spirit and the 
mode of working of the various public institutions emphasize 
the character of unity which runs through the political and 
social sphere. Monarchy, Parliament, supreme government, 
local administration, and the Church, in the variety of their 

v 


v1 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





PAGE 
prerogatives and powers, each and all represent the one and 
indivisible State blended with society into asingle existence. 11 

III. The lot of the individual in this State and society. He is in- 
variably only an anonymous fraction of the whole, a humble 
servant of the community, whether it is a question of civic 
honours or duties, of the exercise of private or public rights. 
What has become of the ‘‘natural liberties” of primitive 
humanity saved from the deluge in the ark of England. 
How the human personality is kept down in the regular 
manifestations of the individual’s existence and crushed in 
others. The individual is still less able to ‘be himself”’ 
in social life than in the legal sphere _.. : 4S 

IV. Nevertheless the institutions afford the individual opportunities 
for displaying his powers, and they develop a social current 
by means of the civic co-operation which they imply or en- 
force. Freed from legal restraint, this current permeates 
the English community, and to a certain extent succeeds, 
even without a complete moral unity of the various elements 
of English society, in making them rally round leaders and 
admit, as a consequence, their authority in the State. Cul- 
minating, as they both do, in the leadership, society and the 
State are once more reunited in it ; 3 

V. How this situation facilitates the working of parliamentary 
government. The leadership of the aristocracy is empha- 
sized by the fact that it disposes, in one way or another, 
of the great majority of the seats in the House of Com- 
mons, and that the members belong to the same society 
of gentlemen, so that social discipline ensures parliamentary 
discipline. The division into parties only countenances it. 
Outside influences being still too feeble to upset them, 
parties remain homogeneous and steadfast, to the greater 
stability of the government . : A A : 3 30 19 


SECOND CHAPTER 


BREAK-UP OF ‘THE OLD SOCIETY . i ; ; 25 


I. What the solidity of the old political and social régime aie 
was ; narrowness of the fabric and want of air; the masses 
left outside, and man in general repressed. The signal for 
emancipation given by the religious revival. Wesley’s appeal 
to the individual conscience, taken up by the Evangelicals 
and carried by them into practical life, introduces ‘‘man”’ 

on the political and social scene of England : ‘ 25 
II. Religious emotion is followed by the sentimentalism of dilet- 
tantes, which helps to raise the moral ideal and man who 

is the possessor of it é ‘ ‘ : : ‘ ; SAY 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME Vil 





PAGE 
Ill. The criterion of duty transported from private into public life 
leads the moralizing philosophers to maintain that the duty 
of the State lies in the direction of utility and of the happi- 
ness of its members, of which they are the best judges 
(Paley, Priestley). This conclusion supported by the new 
science of political economy. Adam Smith demands free 
play for the individual’s activity. The foundation of the 
American Republic and the Declaration of the Rights of 
Man extend and exalt the idea of the independence of the 
individual. Paine and Godwin comment on it and popu- 
larize it. It escapes and survives the violent reaction against 
the French Revolution and its principles, which are quietly 
taken up by the utilitarian philosophy of which Paley and 
Priestley had laid the foundations . : 30 
IV. How Bentham gave the finishing touches to the work. ‘After 
having relentlessly striven to decompose the existing legal 
order ‘of things with the criterion of utility, he uses this crite- 
rion for the construction of anew system. Rejecting the moral 
conscience of man and natural right as the foundations of mor- 
als and politics, he substitutes for them the principle of utility 
appraised scientifically by a calculation of consequences. As 
egoism identifies itself with altruism in order to better gratify 
its desire for happiness, society founded on the individual’s 
own interest is natural and solid. The intervention of the 
State is consequently useless and even dangerous, except for 
the protection of the rights of the individual. But as the 
rulers, following the natural bias towards selfishness, exercise 
public authority only in their own interest, which is contrary 
to the general interest, this authority ought to be taken out 
of the hands of the few and placed in those of the many, in 
other words, to realize the greatest happiness of the greatest 
number universal suffrage must be introduced into the State. 
How this synthesis, far from being experimental and scien- 
tific, is constructed throughout by abstract reasoning, like 
that of the French ideologists, and how Bentham was led 
to conclusions identical with theirs and doomed to the same 
impotence . . 38 
V. The twofold action which opened the way “for the new concep- 
tion of the supremacy of the individual superseding the com- 
munity. The creation of a new state of mind favourable to 
the new ideas; it is due to the ruthless criticism of the ex- 
isting order of things pursued by Bentham and his disciples, 
the Philosophical Radicals, to more frequent intercourse 
with foreign countries, and to new currents in literature . 38 
VI. How the revolution in the domain of ideas is reinforced by the 
effects of the industrial transformation. Mechanical inven- 
tions. The outbreak and triumph of the spirit of enterprise 


viii 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





and of individual effort. The middle class taken out of its 
mediocrity demands its place in society, and successfully 
assaults the dominant position of the aristocracy in the 
State. How the numerous legislative reforms of the years 
1828-1846, which abolish the political, economical and social 
monopoly of the old ruling class, together with the Established 
Church, sever the old ties and shatter the ancient founda- 
tions of society 


VII. The individual reaps ‘the benefit of the “change. Endowed 


henceforth with a conscience of his own and with acknow- 
ledged interests and rights, he completes his emancipation 
through the new economical conditions and material pro- 
gress in general, although, on the other hand, these same 
conditions occasionally overwhelm and crush him. How- 
ever, freed from the old restrictions and left to himself or 
relying on himself, the individual is somewhat isolated. This 
result is, to a great extent, simply the inevitable intermedi- 
ary term in the process of emancipation, which begins by 
untying and separating the repressed individuals ; then, iso- 
lated and dissolved into general and abstract categories, they 
tend to become less unlike one another; and the ground 
being levelled and a common stand provided, they obtain 
fresh facilities for drawing near each other again in new, 
generalized, social relations. How this psychological pro- 
cess of abstraction and generalization was working in real 
life on the individual and on society, by changing ideas and 
rules of conduct and establishing them on general and com- 
prehensive principles. Resemblance of the process to that 
of the ideologists. Limitations under which it was to take 
effect in reality 


VIII. How the same logical process of decomposition which paved 


the way for the general was going on in the State. Its sepa- 
ration from the Church and society makes it more personal, 
but deprives it of some of its cohesion by disconnecting local 
self-government from parliamentary government, both of 
them being taken out of their old common groove. How the 
process of disaggregation continues in the second instance 
within each separately. The reforms in local administra- 
tion, inspired by the new ideas or the new requirements, 
but partial and without system or comprehensive plan, 
scatter it out among numerous and varied authorities and 
departments, which bring in officialism and bureaucratic 
centralization, and keep back the representatives of society 
who, especially in the middle class, are inclined to shirk their 
public duties. Disraeli denounces the ‘‘new ruling class 
which does not rule.’’ In consequence of the final collapse 
of the old society, in 1846, the old motive force of parlia- 


PAGE 


41 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME ix 





PAGE 
mentary government is abated, the historic dualism of par- 
ties is shattered, the time-honoured bonds of discipline are 
loosened, and the individual asserts his independence within 
the walls of Parliament as well. Unfounded complaints of 
political veterans. Being a mere reflection of society which 
was going through the crisis of the generalization of social 
relations between man and man, Parliament could not sub- 
sist on the old political virtue of personal loyalty, which was 
at the bottom of party government, but required a more 
comprehensive guiding principle and a wider sphere of action 50 


THIRD CHAPTER 


ATTEMPTS AT REACTION . . . . . . . . 3 nog 


I. The alarm aroused at the new direction given to society by 
individualist philosophy and the industrial transformation. 
Attempts to restore the old unity. The Oxford movement 
tries to bring back the old religious unity by a romantic 
return to primitive faith, to the Christianity of the early cen- 
turies restored on the basis of tradition, and of the sovereign 
authority of the Catholic and universal Church. How the 
Oxford leaders fail in their object, forced as they are, both 
for the propaganda and the defence of their doctrines, to 
appeal themselves to free opinion and the right of private 
judgment . : . “bo 

II. The romantic school in n the Church i is followed by the romantic 
school of country gentlemen who seek to restore the old politi- 
cal creed which united classes and individuals, Disraeli pro- 
poses to recast the scattered elements of the nation by the 
power of sentiment, and not by that of reason, by rekindling 
the attachment to the Monarchy and the Church, and reviv- 
ing social sympathy between the people and its natural lead- 
ers. The Young England party tries the experiment. Its 
idyllic proceedings are powerless to resuscitate the past, and 
come to nothing ; 5 61 

III. Carlyle’s denunciations of the materialism of a ‘mechanical age 
and of the anarchy of laissez-faire meet with more success. 
He opposes to them the sentiment of duty of which you have 
only to be thoroughly convinced, and calls for a new aristoc- 
racy, not of birth but of the heart; for men need to be 
guided and governed by their superiors, whether they like it 
or no, in spite of the delusive doctrines of democracy which 
ends in zero, and is made up only of the shadows of things, 
of Benthamite formulas barren as the east wind. Why this 
appeal to the nerves had so much success and produced so 
little effect . : : ; : : ; : ‘ 65 


x CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





PAGE 
IV. The Christian Socialists alone come forward with a positive 
solution. They endeavour to cure the morbid individual- 
ism in economic life by co-operation inspired by a Christian 
spirit, by the Christianity of Christ. The noble and coura- 
geous practical efforts of Kingsley, Maurice, Ludlow, and 
their friends meet with varying success. Eventually their 
dream of making society an organic whole instead of a col- 
lection of warring atoms, by means of universal co-operation, 
is condemned by their own experience. They had over-esti- 
mated the efficacy of co-operation and the power of Chris- 

tianity. 

How these four movements of reaction against individualism 
or latitudinarianism, differing in their origin and conception, 
but resembling each other in spirit, all lead to the same nega- 

tive result, owing to disregard of the reality ‘ ‘ 5 107 


FOURTH CHAPTER 


DEFINITIVE TRIUMPH OF THE NEW REGIME A : : seed (il 


I. The uneasiness caused by the sentimental aces on individu- 
alism proceeding from different quarters is not lasting. The 
growing prosperity due to Free Trade confirms the belief 
in the superiority of a system resting on the unfettered 
play of interests. The ‘‘ Manchester School”? erects it into 
a doctrine. The philosophy of Free Trade. Not so narrow 
as it is now the fashion to believe il 

II. John Stuart Mill definitively proclaims the idea of the sovereign 
individual as an eternal verity reposing on reason. He de- 
rives it from Bentham’s principle of utility, from the desire 
of pleasure, estimated, however, not only by quantity but by 
quality, from egoism identifying itself with altruism through 
the association of ideas. It is utility which bids society grant 
the individual liberty in the widest sense of the term, espe- 
cially in the economic sphere, and which makes a foregone 
conclusion of the form of government which must be demo- 
cratic and representative. These conclusions are arrived at, 
as in Bentham’s case, by abstract reasoning and in complete 
agreement with the French rationalists of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. The modifications made by Mill in Bentham’s doctrine 
in regard to morals, politics, and especially political economy, 
do not alter it to any great extent. Mill only gives it a loftier 
aspect both in its essence and by the generous tone of his writ- 
ings. What was Mill’s great achievement, which gave him 
control over opinion, and especially of the rising generation, 
and enabled him to enforce radical individualism with its 
destructive and levelling tendencies more emphatically than 
ever ; : : : , é c : é : Aes (2 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME xi 





PAGE 
III. The doctrine of individualism in possession of the field. It 
monopolizes thought, and is free from counteracting forces 
in the practical sphere. ‘This is due to the want of political 
education in the country (neglected by the new ruling class 
even more than elementary education, which is lamentably 
inadequate) and also to the languid condition of political life 
in the concluding years of the Palmerston régime under a 
successful and self-indulgent middle class . 2 . 82 
IV. The apathy and stagnation in politics tend rather to favour 
the rise of rationalist individualism by turning the élite of 
society, who are precluded from action, toward thought. A 
rationalist ‘‘ Young England.’’ ‘The spirit of criticism in- 
vades even theology. Rationalist enthusiasm supplemented 
by fashionable scepticism. The Press, the power of which 
increases day by day (abolition of the stamp duties), becomes 
more aggressive and helps to diffuse ‘‘ contempt for the old 
institutions and a wish to ape continental democracy.” 
Ideological tone of political talk. The individualist principle 
of autonomy finds its way into colonial and foreign politics. 
Individualist radicalism grows enthusiastic while awaiting 
the realization of its hopes, kept in abeyance by the prestige 
of Palmerston ; 1786 
V. The action after Palmerston’ s death centres in ‘the question of 
the extension of the suffrage. The enemy’s forces weak- 
ened beforehand: the Whigs bound by heedless promises, 
the Tories demoralized by their reverses in politics, and by 
the accession of the middle classes. Having no deep convic- 
tions, they are powerless to resist the zeal of the reformers. 
The political parties intervene like the third thief in the 
fable. Mortally wounded since 1846, living from hand to 
mouth, at one time on the expedients of parliamentary 
intrigue, at another on Palmerston’s credit, they both, 
Whigs first, and Tories afterwards, come to look on the 
extension of the suffrage as a means of retrieving their posi- 
tion. Theirrace for power. Nevertheless Disraeli’s Reform 
Bill takes its stand on ‘‘ national customs and traditions.’’ 
But all the ‘‘checks and balances’’ devised by him give way 
one after another, and ‘‘ abstract principles’’ triumph along 
the whole line, with the result that electoral rights are placed 
on a rational basis and the reign of democracy formally 
inaugurated. Their victory had been preparing for a century 
as in France. Ideas in their victorious course make no dis- 
tinction between peoples. The idea of ‘‘man,’’ introduced 
into England by moral principles, into France by logic, and 
aided by events, pursues the same rectilineal course on both 
sides of the Channel and runs into the same ‘‘ impasse’? of 
the ‘* geometric theory of society ”’ : : ; : . 92 


xil 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





VI. The triumph of the Benthamites not without alloy. Grote 


Tue Oricins OF PoLiticaL ASSOCIATIONS 5 - . 


and especially Mill preoccupied with the dangers of en- 
trusting power to a ‘‘numerical majority ’’ in democracies. 
Prospect of the individual being crushed by individualism. 
Mill believes that he has found a remedy in ‘ personal 
representation.”? The grandeur of the object and the 
inadequacy of the means presented by the plan. How the 
original sin of Benthamism left Mill no alternative. He sub- 
mits the proposal to Parliament, but without success. Un- 
expected but justifiable support from Viscount Cranborne, 
who is preoccupied with the fate of the remnant of the old 
society in danger of being swamped by democracy. Repre- 
sentation of minorities passed by the House of Lords. Their 
amendment violently opposed in the House of Commons as 
tending to curb democracy and paralyze party government. 
Bright stands up for the ‘‘ ancient ways of the Constitution.”’ 
This twofold and conflicting anxiety, on the one hand, for 
the individual menaced by the triumph of individualism, by 
the advent of numbers to power, on the other hand, for the 
preservation by force of numbers of the old system of party 
government doomed by the emancipating process of indi- 
vidualism, foreshadows a stirring drama on the political 
stage of England. 

In consequence of the adoption of the minority clause the 
electoral masses are invited to combine for resistance on 
extra-constitutional lines, this combination to supply at the 
same time a permanent form of organization for the demo- 
cracy : : : : . - : : ; e : 


SECOND PART 
FIRST CHAPTER 


England under George III. Public opinion rising against 
the corrupt Parliament tries to organize itself by means of 
Societies and Committees for the free expression of its griev- 
ances and its wishes. The ‘‘ Society for upholding the Bill 
of Rights’? formed in connection with Wilkes’ case. The 
‘¢ Corresponding Committees’ called into being by the agita- 
tion for economic and parliamentary reforms. The appre- 
hensions which they excite. The American precedent for 
the Committees and the Boston Caucus. The delegates of 
the Committees assemble in London. ‘Their petition to Par- 
liament. Great debate in the House on the legality of the 
Associations and of the meetings of the delegates. Speeches 
of Fox, Burgoyne, and Dunning. . 


PAGE 


102 


Li 
I. Precedents of extra-constitutional political organization in 


nla bel 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME Xill 





PAGE 
II. The democratic Societies for demanding universal suffrage are 
due to the impulse given by the French Revolution. Their 
noisy theatrical proceedings, The moderate ‘‘ Society of 
the Friends of the People.’’ The political associations be- 
come discredited and call forth repressive measures on the 
part of the government. ‘The secret Societies. ‘Their exten- 
sive development after 1815, ‘‘ Hampden Clubs,”’ ‘‘ Spencean 
Clubs.’’? Fresh measures of repression against the Societies 124 
III. The Reform movement is taken up again by the ‘ Politi- 
cal Unions,’’? with the co-operation of the middle class. 
The Political Union of Birmingham. After the passing of 
the Reform Act the middle classes leave the Unions, but the 
masses who had not been admitted to the franchise renew 
the agitation by means of Associations. Chartism. A num- 
ber of Societies for obtaining Parliamentary Reform spring 
into life during the subsequent period, and continue to exist 
until the new Reform Act of 1867 pik them of their 
object . A . 126 
IV. The spirit of reaction also lays its hand on " the ‘weapon of 
association. ‘‘Society against Republicans and Levellers.’’ 
‘‘ Constitutional Associations.’? Associations of fanatical 
Protestants led by Lord George Gordon. Orange Lodges. 
The Catholic Association in Ireland; it forces the ic Aig 
Government to grant Catholic emancipation F . 129 
V. The Anti-Corn-Law League and its persuasive agitation. Un- 
like the Catholic Association and the Political Unions, it 
brings about the surrender of the constitutional authorities 
to an extra-constitutional organization by the sole force of 
opinion which it enlists in its service . . 130 
VI. But none of these extra-constitutional organizations aimed at 
becoming a regular and permanent power in the State; their 
intervention was looked on as exceptional, and enforced by 
circumstances ; their agitation was directed not so much 
against the established plan of representative government 
as against the selfish parties which had monopolized it. 
Anxiety of the League and of Cobden to lift the struggle 
for free-trade above parliamentary parties. Cobden’s appeal 
to Sir Robert Peel to put an end to party government . . 182 


SECOND CHAPTER 


THE BEGINNINGS OF ParTY ORGANIZATIONS. - ‘ é . 185 


I. The political parties who were aimed at by the extra-constitu- 
tional organizations in pursuit of reforms, have recourse 
to extra-parliamentary organizations themselves. Before 
1832 they had no organization outside Parliament, and had 


xiv CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





no need of one, territorial influence or electoral corruption 

being sufficient for getting them votes. It is only by the 
purchase of seats and by subventions to candidates that the 

party organizations inside Parliament make their influence 

felt in the country : . : : : é : 

II. Study of this organization. The Whips. Electoral operations 
of the Patronage Secretary and the Opposition Whips in the 
country 

III. Regular party organizations not introduced into the country 
until after 1832. The defective provisions in the Reform 

Act for the preparation of electoral lists leave it to private 
initiative, and so give rise to the formation of Registration 
Societies, which cover the country with a network of organi- 
zation and get hold of the election business . 

IV. At the same time central party organizations arise in the Lon- 
don political clubs. The early history of political clubs in 

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Carlton and 

the Reform Club inaugurate the political action of clubs and 
provide the party Whips with centres for directing election- 
eering operations in the provinces : 

V. The Whips are assisted in this task by general agents of the 
parties and their local correspondents. The Liberal Whip 
Brand starts a special central organization on more method- 

ical lines, outside the Club. The duties of the central 
Association as regards registration, outvoters, and recom- 
mendation of parliamentary candidates. The Conservatives 
follow the example of the Liberals. The central Asso- 
ciations drive the clubs into the background in all matters 
connected with party organization. Their local correspon- 

dents the solicitors 

VI. The development of the system ‘of Registration Societies before 
and after 1846. Sir Robert Peel’s exhortations: Register, 
Register, Register! The Conservative Associations in Lan- 
cashire. The impulse given by the Anti-Corn-Law League 

to the formation of Registration Societies. After 1846 the 
movement slackens down : 

VII. Varying importance of the part played by the Registration 
Societies in electioneering operations. They had not much 

to do with the selection of candidates. How this was man- 

aged. The play of living social forces which marked men 

out and thrust them on the public. ‘' Hole-and-corner’’ 
management 

VIII. The action of the Associations: was somewhat - more . important 
in the canvass. Description of canvassing in the good old 

days. The Whartons, the Grenvilles, the Duchesses of Dev- 
onshire. The extension of the suffrage did not make canvass- 

ing fall into disuse ; on the contrary, henceforth it required a 


PAGE 


. 135 


Ot 


. 140 


. 143 


. 146 


. 149 


= 161 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME XV 





PAGE 
more methodical organization. How the Registration Socie- 
ties lent their machinery for canvassing operations. fap 05)3) 
IX. The action of the Associations was most considerable in regis- 
tration operations, and was conducted in such a way as to 
impede the legitimate exercise of electoral rights, thanks to 
the devices of lodging unfounded claims and objections. 
Severe comments made by parliamentary committees and 
even by some representatives of the Associations themselves, 
both of them holding that the party Associations had an 
unhealthy effect . é . 156 
X. The extension of their sphere of activity and influence viewed 
with apprehension, as tending to interfere with the natural 
expression of public opinion. ‘This point of view considered 
with regard to all the electoral reforms before the public. 
The action of party organizations, however, was about to 
assume vast proportions in conseqence of the opposition of 
the Birmingham Radicals to the representation of minorities 159 


THIRD CHAPTER 


THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS. F é ‘ : A . 161 


I. The Birmingham Liberals start a plan of electoral organization 
with the object of nullifying the ‘‘ minority clause.’? Vote as 
youaretold . 61 

II. Messrs. Schnadhorst and Chamberlain appear on the scene. 
Sphere of municipal activity offered by the town of Birming- 
ham. Mr. Chamberlain and his friends take in hand the 
work to be done. The great results of their activity @ la 


Haussmann. ; ; . 163 
IJ. The support given by the Liberal Association. its organiza- 
tion. Its real and pretended base of operations . ; . 165 


IV. The spirit in which the Association was managed. It becomes 
a centre of public life. The peculiar industrial character of 
Birmingham presents special facilities for the development 
of public life. The brilliant services rendered by Mr. Cham- 
berlain and his friends revive the old social leadership. The 
Liberal Association reaps the benefit of it. Its partisan char- 
acter becomes intensified, and it shows a relentless energy 
in excluding the Conservatives from all share in local public 
life. Its success in this . P ne LGa, 
V. The propaganda of the ‘“ Birmingham plan”? : in the country. 
How it found the ground pretty well prepared owing to the 
introduction of secret voting and the Liberal defeat at the 
general election of 1874 : neal 
VI. The appearance of new Liberal Diganianonen in national poli- 
tics on the occasion of the anti-Turkish agitation of the 


xvi 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





years 1876-1878. The idea of giving permanency to their 
joint action, and directing it towards a single aim by means 
of a central Organization. Conference at Birmingham for 
the purpose of founding a Federation of the Associations. 
Taking its stand on the right of the ‘‘ people’’ to control the 
policy of the party and on the deposition of the traditional 
leaders involved therein, the new Organization claims to mod- 
ify the action of Liberalism not so much in ve asin modo. It 
would be a Liberal parliament outside the Imperial Legisla- 
ture, and an instrument of general agitation at the disposal of 
Liberal opinion, which would find its real representation in 
this parliament. After a very summary discussion the scheme 
of the Liberal Federation is adopted by the Conference 


Ve The inauguration of the Federation by Mr. Gladstone. The 


Tue GrRowTH OF THE Caucus 


V/ 


special position held by him at this time in the Liberal party. 
Final stage of his evolution as popular leader, and climax of 
his power over the minds of the masses. The secret of this 
power. How the Federation, by virtue of the patronage ex- 
tended to it by Mr. Gladstone, reaps the benefit of his 
immense prestige with the people, and of his pre-eminence 
in the Liberal party as opposed to the official leaders 


FOURTE CHAPTER 


The Birmingham group continue the propaganda of the caucus 
system with the aid of Mr. Gladstone. Different reception 
accorded to the plan in different localities both by the masses 
and by the old ruling classes. In a good many places the 
old régime holds its ground. Nevertheless the province of 
the old Whig Organization is more and more invaded by the 
Caucus 


II. The Caucus takes up and accentuates the traditional antago- 


nism between Whigs and Radicals. The aspect which the 
conflict had assumed ; two worlds confronting each other 


III. The old Liberalism. Its stock of opinions and its temper. 


How Birmingham Radicalism, which was the absolute nega- 
tion of it, fastens on the principles, the rules of conduct, and 
the habits and proprieties of the old Liberals. The argu- 
ments by which the Radicals justify the attack; the defence 
made by the old Liberals. How Radicalism aiming at the 
traditional leaders hit the Moderates as well, how it launched 
the bolts of the Caucus at both 


Wy The temper of the contingents brought into the field by the 


new Organizations. Their weak and strong points. The 
necessity for leadership. The materials for leadership among 


PAGE 


~ 1s 


BIS 


. 183 


. 183 


. 185 


. 188 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME Xvii 





PAGE 
the Radical set and the men of the old ruling classes. How 
their inadequacy combined with the tendencies of the masses 
often favoured the introduction of a sectarian and intolerant 
spirit within the organizations : . 192 

» V. This spirit displayed in the pretensions of the Caucus with 
regard to the choice of candidates. Conflict between the 
Bradford caucus and W.E. Forster. Forster’s position and 
the animosity which he had aroused, owing to his share in the 
organization of primary instruction, among the Nonconform- 
ists who abounded in the Caucus . : . 194 

VI. The Bradford caucus calls on Forster to submit to the rule 
which gives the Association the right of deciding without 
appeal on the candidates or on Members who seek re-elec- 
tion. Forster disputes the right of the Caucus to intervene 
between the candidate and the constituency, and to usurp 
the place of the latter. The campaign conducted by the 
caucus against Forster at Bradford. The feeling aroused 
in the country by the conflict. Mr. Gladstone’s interven- 
tion. Lame solution of the affair.” The other caucuses 
adopt a similar line of conduct (Sir John Simon’s case), 
moderated occasionally by the intervention of the principal 
leaders of the Caucus. : ‘ : : ‘ ; . 197 


FIFTH CHAPTER 


Tue Caucus IN POWER ‘ . 204 


I. The Liberal victory at the panes Si eHbns of 1880. Mr. Cham- 
berlain attributes it to the Caucus. His elevation to the 
Ministry interpreted as an official acknowledgment of the 
influence of the Caucus. What was really the case. The fac- 
tors of the Liberal victory. The Caucus nevertheless imposes 
on the public, and a new conventional force confronting real 
forces penetrates into English political life . : . 204 

II. The twofold mission which the Caucus assumes with regard to 
the Government in pointing out to it the wishes of the con- 
stituencies and helping it to get them recognized by Parlia- 
ment. How the first of these tasks was superfluous, at any 
rate, and the second contrary to the fundamental ideas of 
parliamentary government: How the Caucus kept the ma- 
jority in the House in a state of obedience to the Ministry 
by means of continuous pressure of the Associations on the 
Members. How the Caucus worked public opinion through- 
out the country from Birmingham by its machinery. . 207 

III. The Caucus reveals itself most completely in these aspects by 
intervention in the reform of the Procedure of the House of 
Commons. It interferes between the majority and the mi- 


XVlii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





nority in Parliament, between the leader of the party and his 
followers, between the Member and his constituents, between 
Parliament and public opinion 
IV. How the Caucus, which seeks to thrust itself on ‘the country on 
the pretext of giving expression to the opinion of the party, 
does not allow this opinion to display itself when it is unfa- 
vourable to the Ministry and its too docile majority, especially 
in the conjuncture created by the unfortunate foreign policy 
of the Gladstone Cabinet 5 
V. Liberal Organizations founded in a different spirit to that of 
the Caucus. National Reform Union of Manchester. Dis- 
turbed by the success of the Caucus it gradually adopts its 
mode of action. The contrast which at first existed between 
the conceptions, methods, and procedure of both organiza- 
tions is obliterated in favour of the Caucus. Another proof 
of the same kind is supplied, amid different social conditions, 
by the London and Counties Liberal Union. It also con- 
siders its duty to be not the manipulation of the electors but 
the political education of the masses, undertaken in an hon- 
est, sincere, and disinterested spirit. Little appreciated and 
badly supported, it disappears and its place is taken by the 
Caucus. The noisy activity displayed by the latter finally 
places it at the head of extra-parliamentary Liberalism 


SIXTH CHAPTER 


THe Caucus In Power (Continued) . 


I. The local Associations in their own homes. Their relations 
with the Members of Parliament. The Caucus insists on the 
subordination of the Member. The Forster conflict renewed 
on this occasion 

II. Is the attack delivered on this ground by the Radical Caucus 
levelled only against moderatism or against the independ- 
ence of the Members? Mr. Joseph Cowen’s case supplies 
an answer to the question. The character and the past of 
Cowen. : 

Ill. The struggle of the Newcastle Caucus with Cowen. ” ‘Triumph 
of the Caucus : 

IV. The defeat of Cowen marks the eclipse of classic Radicalism. 
The ‘‘substitution of machinery for individuality.’’ Vain 
exhortations or protests of the last of the old Radicals 

V. Moderate Liberalism, the special object of the attacks of the 
Caucus, gives way chiefly since the year 1880. How the un- 
stable equilibrium between the moderate element and the 
Radical element in the ‘‘hundreds’’ was destroyed, and how 


PAGE 


. 212 


. 216 


ser lye 


. 227 


. 227 


. 230 


. 234 


. 240 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 


xix 





the Caucus placed the moderates in the dilemma of either fol- 
lowing it or being wiped out. They are out of the running 
as Liberals. Their unwillingness to cut themselves adrift. 
Bound by their ties to official Liberalism, the leaders of the 
moderates themselves discourage their adherents’ inclinations 
towards resistance, a resistance doomed to failure owing to 
the temperament of its promoters, which was too doctrinaire 
and too judicious for the masses. In the meanwhile Mr. 
Chamberlain’s ‘‘ unauthorized programme’’ gives the mod- 
erate Liberals a shock, and makes them turn their eyes in 


PAGE 


the direction of the Conservatives . 242 
SEVENTH CHAPTER 
THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION . 250 


I. The outburst of organization in consequence of the Refer 


i. 


Ill. 


IV. 


VI. 


Act of 1867. A new representative and elective central 
authority. The local development of party organization. It 
is placed under the auspices of popular Toryism 


tice. They do not agree. The real foundation of the new 
Conservatism. In the long run ‘‘ popular Toryism ”’ is only 
a name ni 


Conservative Working-men’s Associations. Disraeli does not 
recognize them. The victory of 1874 raises the ‘‘ Conserva- 
tive working-man’’ without making the party Associations 
acquire a truly popular character and real influence. The 
work assigned to the Organization by the leaders. Exhor- 
tation to discipline 3 Z 


and the death of Lord Beaconsfield. The impatience of the 
younger men. The ‘‘ Fourth Party.’? The resentment of 
the plebeians. The manifesto against the aristocratic leader- 
ship, and its conclusion as regards the organization of the 


party 


the plebeians only. In the large towns this work had been 
already started by the force of circumstances. The vanity 
of the Tory tiers état is gratified by it. The final result 
is that the Tories imitate the Caucus. This movement is 
stimulated by the ‘‘ Fourth Party ”’ 


Part played by Lord Randolph Churchill. His propaganda of 


Tory democracy. Elijah’s mantle, and the reminiscences of 
Young England. The Primrose League. 


. 250 
The origin of popular Toryism. Disraeli’s doctrine and prac- 


. 252 
How the party Organizations interpret popular Toryism. The 


. 255 
Party reorganization engrosses attention after the defeat of 1880 


5 , . 260 
. The need for its reorganization on popular lines | is not felt by 


. 268 


xx CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





EIGHTH CHAPTER 


PAGE 
THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION (Continued) : é z . 2738 


I. The ‘‘Fourth Party’ tries to make the National Union the 
lever of the Neo-Toryism, and to take it out of the hands of 
the leaders. Rupture with Lord Salisbury. Intervention of 
the democratized Associations of the party. Establishment 
of a modus vivendi between the leaders and the Tory demo- 
crats. Counter-movement of the followers of the leaders at 
the Sheffield Conference. Triumph of the popular principle, 
at all events in the Organization of the party ; . 278 
II. The popular principle in the politics of the party. The Neo- 
Tories of Liverpool come forward as pioneers of the new 
policy. Their interpretation and practical application of it 278 
III. Conservatism is shaken in its very theory. How Neo-Tory- 
ism, built up with the old Tory creed on the democratized 
Organization of the party, ends in a sort of plebiscitary 
Cesarism. How the difficulty of preserving the creed side 
by side with the new Organization drives the Tories into 
a policy of opportunism verging on demagogism . . 281 
IV. Signs of this evolution in the question of electoral reform and 
in the policy of the first Salisbury Ministry. ‘The Tories 
in office, the Radicals in power.’’ The position of the mod- 
erate Liberals between the ‘‘ Conservatives’’ and the Radicals 
of the Caucus , : ‘ : . : z r . 283 


NINTH CHAPTER 


Tue Crisis oF 1886, AND THE FINAL DEVELOPMENT OF Party OrR- 
GANIZATION . 2 : 6 3 F A : S200 


I. The split in the Liberal party breaks out at last in consequence 
of Mr. Gladstone’s conversion to Home Rule for Ireland. 
When brought before public opinion, the conflict becomes a 
source of great perplexity to the would-be mouthpiece of 
that opinion, the Caucus. Being called on by the Birming- 
ham leaders to make up their minds, the Associations, 
placed between Mr. Chamberlain, the master of the Caucus, 
and Mr. Gladstone, the leader of the party, only display 
their confusion ; . 287 

II. The meeting of the delegates of the Liberal Associations ‘takes 
Mr. Gladstone’ sside. The factors which brought about Mr. 
Chamberlain’s defeat within the Caucus, and notably the 
provincial jealousies aroused by Birmingham. Having re- 
ceived their orders, the Associations take a decided line. The 
pressure exerted by them on the Liberal members who are 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME xxl 





PAGE 
hostile to Home Rule, and their opposition to them at the 
general election after the rejection of the Irish Bill in the 
House of Commons. The Liberal Unionists sufferers in 
the cause of ‘‘ the right of private judgment.’’ The caucuses 
drive them out of the ranks of the historic Liberal party, 
for their different views on the Irish question, and at the same 
time convert the national deliberation into a personal plébis- 
cite for or against Mr. Gladstone. How Mr. Gladstone’s de- 
feat was partly due to misplaced confidence in the Caucus, 
and how, on the other hand, the latter saved him from an 
utter rout’. . 290 

III. The line taken by the Caucus ¥ was the best i in its own interests. 
Mr. Chamberlain’s secession hailed as a guarantee of the 
future of the Organization, and even of democracy in Eng- 
land. The delight of the young Radicals and the adhesion 
of several Associations which were holding aloof. Revision 
of the statutes of the Federation in a decentralizing sense 
to emphasize its return to orthodox democracy. The trans- 
fer of its head office to London. How the compulsory with- 
drawal of the Federation from Birmingham, coming after 
its separation from Mr. Chamberlain, as well as the resig- 
nation of the moderate members of the local Associations, 
far from weakening the Caucus, added to its sh and 
its importance : . 295 

-IV. The price which had to be paid for this increase “of power. 
Owing to the close relations of the Caucus with the official 
leaders of the party, their influence penetrates into the 
counsels of the popular Organization to the detriment of its 
independence. The Federation is acting rather as their 
mouthpiece than as a free parliament of public opinion. 
The meeting of the delegates reduced to registering cut-and- 
dried resolutions arranged beforehand with the leaders. 
How the relations between public opinion and the party 
leaders, of the kind implied by parliamentary government, 
are warped by this. The proper division of powers is ig- 
nored, and responsibility thrown on the wrong shoulders if 
not destroyed altogether : . 300 

V. Another effect of the too close connection “between the popular 
Organization of the party and the parliamentary leaders, is 
to make the former stick to the position of the latter at the 
risk of impeding the regular evolution of the party. The 
criterion of Liberalism being reduced to a strict and blind 
adherence to the policy of the Liberal leaders, intolerance is 
exalted into a political virtue. The chiefs of the Caucus set 
the example ; Lord Rosebery rebuked. The local Associa- 
tions get rid of the remaining dissentient elements. Gratify- 
ing exceptions presented by some caucuses. All the others, 


Xxil 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





however, try to widen the gulf between the orthodox and 
the dissentient Liberals. How this line of conduct, adopted 
in the interests of Home Rule, is fatal to the Irish cause 


VI. The expurgation of the Liberal party is hardly completed when 


it begins to show signs of disunion. Attempt to reunite the 
different sections under the mended ‘old umbrella’’ of Lib- 
eral and Radical Associations. Far from being soothed, 
advanced Radicalism becomes more and more aggressive and 
incensed against the Organization of the party. Its outburst 
of wrath on the formation of a central caucus for the me- 
tropolis. The ‘‘caucusians’’ are accused of being oppor- 
tunists trying to poach on the democratic preserves, and the 
extension of the caucus to London is alleged to be a fresh 
danger for Radicalism, threatened with the despotism of 
official Liberalism or even with the process of being ‘‘ ground 
to powder’? by the ‘‘Schnadhorst machine.’? <A group of 
‘‘new Radicals’’ asserts itself in the House of Commons 


VII. Liberal officialism is confronted with a more formidable foe in 


the person of the ‘‘ Labour Party,’’? which takes its stand on 
social reform outside the political parties. The old politi- 
cal Liberalism is arraigned by some representatives of the 
Liberal middle class as well. Their ideal of New Liberalism. 
But the supporters of the various political reforms stick to 
them. The Caucus then starts the Newcastle Programme 
and its omnibus, which carries off the official leaders ipso 
facto by compelling them to admit even measures of State 
socialism. The labour movement, however, does not lay 
down its arms : 


als, but their majority, being split up into groups represent- 
ing the varied claims embodied in the Newcastle Programme, 
holds its ground only by means of log-rolling, without suc- 
ceeding in checkmating the Opposition. To secure a united 
majority in the country, the Liberal Ministry attempts a 
diversion against the House of Lords. The Rosebery Goy- 
ernment, being manifestly unable to carry on the work of 
legislation, retires. The Liberal party going to the country 
with just as little unity in its programme, sustains a formi- 
dable defeat. All the devices of organization and wire- 
pulling had been of no avail . 


given to the Tory party owing to the Irish crisis and the 
alliance with the Liberal Unionists. The attempt at a pro- 
nunciamiento by Lord Randolph Churchill only recoils on 
its author. The attitude observed by the democratized Asso- 
ciations in this conjuncture. After Lord Randolph Church- 
ill’s eclipse, the prestige of the popular Tory Organization 


PAGE 


. 806 


. 310 


: ‘ ; . ‘ : : . 312 
VIII. The general election of 1892 results in a victory for the Liber- 


, ‘ : ; . 318 
IX. The Conservative party was more fortunate. The new impulse 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME xxi? 





PAGE 
is dimmed. The rise of the leadership. Nevertheless the 
process of democratization of Toryism continues. To what 
extent this is due to the action and reaction of the Conserva- 
tive caucuses, of the Tory democracy in the large towns, 
combined with the exigencies of the alliance with Mr. 
Chamberlain . ; ‘ : ; : : ; ‘ . 391 


THIRD: PARE 


FIRST CHAPTER 


Tue MACHINERY OF THE Caucus. 3 3 : ; . 329 


I. Study of the working of the Caucus, of the conditions and the 
methods of its action on the bulk of the electorate. The 
constituent parts of the machinery of the Caucus and 
the men who set it in motion. Organization in the ward. 
How members are recruited. The periodical ward meetings, 
their object and their utility. The public-house as a rally- 
ing centre. The members are not numerous, and the regu- 
lar attendants at the ward meetings still less so. Everything 
is managed by a coterie of which the ward secretary is the 
prompter. The powers of the ward gomcas and the part 
played by him : . 829 

II. The next scale in the Organization as - the " Council. ” ‘The 
co-opted members and the large subscribers. The pecuniary 
resources of the Association. The great majority of mem- 
bers do not contribute to it at all . - - . 334 

III. The executive committee of the ‘‘ Hundreds.’’ Its réle and its 
preponderant influence. The ‘inner circle’’ which arises 
within it. The concentration of power in the hands of a 
few reaches its climax in the large towns with several elec- 
toral Divisions Fi . 337 

IV. The secretary of the Association factotum of the Organization. 
The honorary secretary. The President; ‘‘the man who 
can tell the biggest lies ;’? his ‘ respectability ue ‘ . 340 

V. The social composition of the Associations. The aristocracy 
hardly represented. The very slight participation of the 
upper middle class in the daily life of the Associations. The 
influence of its leading representatives on the choice of can- 
didates. The indifference of the working classes. The lower 
middle class alone is left to take an interest in the Caucus. 
The alacrity with which it does so. Being a victim of social 
exclusiveness, it finds social and political distinction in the 
openings afforded by the Caucus. The less prominent part 
played by the lower middle class in the Tory Caucus . . 344 


Xxiv CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





PAGE 
VI. The intellectual standard of the Caucus-men. The narrowness 
of their political horizon and their ideal of a politician. 
Their temperament; the restless and the staid members. 
How in both categories this temperament shows itself in a 
readiness to submit to the impulse given by leaders, to cul- 
tivate an unbending political orthodoxy, and, finally, to 
exclude spontaneity and independence of action and the 
spirit of criticism. Disappearance of the deliberative char- 
acter of the large Caucus meetings. The special style of 
eloquence which they encourage. The ‘‘ hundreds’’ come 
to be simply registering assemblies in which everything is 
presented ‘‘ cut and dried ’’ by a hierarchy of wire-pullers .° 348 
VII. Analysis of the vital force of the Caucus. The motive power 
which brings together and sets going the varied elements 
composing it is supplied by the sense of duty and by amour- 
propre. How the Organization of the party cultivates and 
develops them and makes them subserve its ends. Ideal 
worship of the party. The rites prescribed for the rank and 
file. The systematic meetings and the ‘‘resolutions.’’ The 
satisfactions of self-esteem which the Caucus provides for 
its followers in a gradation adapted to their various tastes 
and requirements. The necessity of flattering vanities and 
smoothing susceptibilities is counterbalanced by the devotion 
of the caucus-men to the Organization, by discipline. The 
limitations to which the latter is subject. The general result 
is to make the Caucus a body little calculated to attract the 
best elements of society. The decline in the quality of the 
Caucus Officials ‘ : Fs : : : : c . 352 
VIII. Organization in the ‘‘counties.’’ Distinction between the 
‘¢ borough’? and ‘‘ county ’’ constituencies. Party organiza- 
tion in the counties before 1885. Impulse given by the Re- 
form Act of 1885. The difficulties of organization in the 
counties specially felt by the Liberals, who are checked by the 
ascendency of the squire and the parson. But after all, want 
of public spirit is a greater impediment than social intimida- 
tion, which is gradually diminishing. The village correspond- 
ent. The weakness of the elective element in the county 
organizations. Wire-pulling is of a more patriarchal char- 
acter in them. Levelling effect of the new county organi- 
zations. The Tory organizations in the counties. The 
cathedral towns. Attempts at combining all the county or- 
ganizations into County Federations or Councils . 5 . 362 





CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME XXV 
SECOND CHAPTER 
PAGE 
Tue ACTION OF THE Caucus Oud 


I. The means by which the Caucus gets a hold on the electorate. 
Registration of voters. How the revision of the Register, 
which is highly complicated owing to the numerous electoral 
qualifications and the legal controversies to which the law 
and judicial opinion on the matter give rise, supplies the 
party organizations with a pretext for exerting themselves 
on behalf of the voters . A 

II. The registration canvass conducted by the ve workers” of the 
Caucus to find out the qualifications of the inhabitants and 
their ‘‘ politics.” The duel of the agents of the caucuses in 
the Registration Court fought with claims and objections ; 
their chicanery ; their bargaining (pairing off). How crafty 
voters parry the attacks of the rival caucus. Passive atti- 
tude of the Revising Barrister. How the intervention of the 
caucuses, while making it easier for the voters to exercise 
their right, has the effect of putting the interests of the 
parties before it, of making the suffrage an ‘artificial fran- 
chise’’ and the Register a ‘‘ triumph of manceuvres and party 
trickery.’’? The advantages which the intervention of the 
Caucus in registration secures to the parties . 4 : 

III. The political education of the electorate. The meetings. Their 
value as a mode of action under an extended suffrage. The 
conditions of success. The gift of oratory is now highly 
appreciated. The craving for political speeches. The ora- 
tors supplied by the party organizations 
IV. The character of their eloquence. Addressed more to the emo- 
tions than the judgment. Platform oratory contrasted with 
the old types of popular political speaking. The changes 
undergone by political eloquence during the last century 
from Chatham to Gladstone. How the latter became the 
classic platform orator, and how his imitators have acclima- 
tized ‘‘stump”’ oratory in England 

V. The extent to which platform oratory actually contributes to 
the political education of the masses. The real object pur- 
sued by the organizers of meetings, which is to ‘‘ raise enthu- 
siasm,’’ is accentuated by a special mise-en-scéne, — singing, 
open-air meetings, demonstrations. Meetings in the country 
districts. Travelling vans : : 5 : : 

VI. Lectures. Their decline. How much of this is due to the 
Caucus preferring to ‘‘raise enthusiasm,’? and how much 
to the indifference of the public. The causes of the latter. 
The strictly partisan character of the lectures. The absence 
of intelligent curiosity about political matters among the 


Boy il 


_ 875 


. 382 


. 386 


. 390 


XXVi 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





Vil: 


VIII. 


EX 


XI. 


PAGE 
masses. Is there progress or the reverse from the stand- 
point of a thoughtful interest taken in politics? How, and 
with what effect, the preceding generation tried to improve 
its mind. The cheap newspaper. The rival attractions of 
sport, of the music-hall ; the impediments created by industri- 
alism. The value of the intellectual revival produced by the 
propaganda of socialism. How the great mass of the people 
assimilates political knowledge. How their mental condition 
unites with the Caucus in preferring methods of propaganda 
which appeal rather to the nerves than to the reason. The 
comparative success of lectures in country districts. The 
supply of lecturers. The ‘‘ political missionaries’? supplant 
the lecturers. : , : ‘ : 5 . . 399 

‘¢ Political literature.’? Itseducational value. The party pub- 
lications are for the most part simply prospectuses and elec- 
tioneering claptrap. The success and the usefulness, from 
the point of view of the parties, of the pamphlets and leaflets 
distributed. Political iconography. A few reading-rooms 
here and there attached to the party Organizations. The 
circulating libraries organized by the central clubs . 406 

The party Press. To what extent it is equal to its duties, 
especially that of enlightening the voter. The violent tone 
and the strong bias of most of the party newspapers. How 
they have perverted the taste of the public. Beginnings of 
a reaction against the political fanaticism of the Press. The 
special societies for political propaganda limited to particu- 
lar questions : . 409 

The idea of supplying political cageenan independently of 
all political organization. It takes shape in the Social and 
Political Education League. Its success almost nil. The 
efforts of the Universities are powerless against the compe- 
tition of the monopolizing parties and the general indiffer- 
ence to disinterested political culture. Attitude of the 
M. P.’sin particular. : = 4)1 

The organizations for general culture which admit politics into 
their programmes. Mechanics’ Institutes, University Exten- 
sion, Reading Unions, and, above all, the Mutual Improve- 
ment Societies : ss ; 5 : : A : . 414 

Debating Societies. Local Parliaments. Their members taken 
from all classes of society. The educational value of the par- 
liaments limited by their strictly copying the great Parlia- 
ment with its parties. It is nevertheless real. But the life 
of the local parliaments is lacking in steadiness. What has 
become of the ambitious views cherished for them. The 
National Association of Local Parliaments . ; . . 415 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME Xxvll 





THIRD CHAPTER 


Tue AcTION OF THE Caucus (Continued) ; 4 2 és . 420 


I. How the intellectual propaganda carried on by the Organiza- 
tions of the parties is supplemented by blending the attrac- 
tions of sociability with politics. The political clubs. Their 
origin. The part played by the great political clubs as party 
managers. How it has been taken from them . . 420 

II. The clubs as places of resort for keeping up and cultivating 
party sentiments. The success of the Tory clubs. The 
efforts of the Liberals who had been outstripped by their 
opponents, since 1874. The founding of the National Lib- 
eral Club and its success. How it is that in spite of this the 
Tory clubs are more effective political instruments : . 422 

III. The ‘‘ working-men’s clubs.’ Their origin due to the efforts 
of philanthropists independent of all party preoccupation. 
The ‘‘ great misfortune’? apprehended by Lord Carnarvon 
comes to pass, the working-men’s clubs become political party 
machines : . 424 
IV. The material importance of the working-men’ s clubs, the social, 
moral, and intellectual standard of theirmembers. Theclubs 
in which liquors are sold and the temperance clubs. Drunk- 
ennessin the clubs. Their financial dependence on the party 
organizations and on self-seeking politicians. The slight in- 
terest taken in politics by most of the members of the clubs. 
They shirk ‘ political work,’’ and do not patronize the read- 
ing-room and the lectures. Working-men’s clubs which are 
too exclusively political; the ccna aii Radical Federa- 
tion, its hostility to the Caucus. . 427 

V. What is, under these circumstances, the use of workinenen! s 
clubs, from the party point of view. They make ignorant and 
indifferent voters follow in the wake of the parties, they 
‘¢preserve young people.’? Why the poor political return 
yielded by the working-men’s clubs does not stop their 
principals and their financial supporters. In the long run 
the Conservatives derive more advantage from the working- 
men’s clubs than their rivals. The federation of Conserva- 
tive clubs : . 431 

VI. The value of clubs as a laboratory of political opinion. How 
their too close connection with the official parties prevents 
them from becoming one. The intolerance that has made 
its way into the Liberal clubs in consequence of the Home 
Rule controversy. The special difficulties in the way of the 
working-men’s clubs becoming a centre of enlightenment ; 
how they are left to shift for themselves by gentlemen 
politicians. 3 - : : ; 5 5 ; . 433 


XXVlll 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





VII. The extraordinary forms assumed by the ‘‘ mixture of politics 


CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING : x 5 : 3 


and pleasure’’ which the Organizations provide for the ‘‘ social 
tendencies’’ of the voters. The social meetings. Smoking 
concerts. Tea meetings, etc. Participation of women. How 
the proceedings at the ‘* Social meetings’? amount to a pur- 
chase of votes in advance. The opinion of the judges on 
these practices and on the dangerous part which the Associ- 
ations play in them. The success of social meetings in 


- different latitudes and with different parties, especially the 


Tories. ‘The efforts of the Primrose League to ‘“ socialize 
politics ’’ 


FOURTH CHAPTER 


I, How the party feelings developed by the Oreaitatise assume 


a concrete form in regard to the person of the parliamentary 
candidate selected by it, and reveal their final cause in the 
election of this candidate. The qualities of a good candidate - 
the profession of the creed of the party in all its fulness and 
‘Cup to date,’’ as well as that of the special political sects 
which flourish in the constituency ; popularity in the various 
aspects capable of impressing the English voter. Coalitions 
of political conventions with living forces. How the rela- 
tion, varying from one constituency to another, between 
social forces and political forces, determires the selection of 
the candidate 


II. The importance of the investiture conferred on the candidate 


by the Caucus. The ‘‘ adopted candidate.’? His monopoly 
is ensured by the prevailing fear of ‘‘ dividing the party.”’ 
The personal interest which the Association often has in 
adopting a candidate beforehand. How the ‘‘adopted can- 
didate ’’ nurses his popularity 


III. How at the approach of the election the candidate is adver- 


tised to the individual voter by means of the electoral can- 
vass. What makes the operation of the time-honoured 
canvass more complicated in the present day. How the 
Caucus meets the difficulty by providing a large body of 
voluntary canvassers who also form a connecting-link with 
the various groups of the population. The canvassing visits ; 
the check-canvass and the cross-canvass. The fetching of 
voters to the poll by the ‘‘ workers.’? The real conversions 
made by the canvass and the professional proselytes. The 
principal effect of the canvass consists in securing the great 
body of voters who have no definite political opinions. In 
what sense ‘‘ everything depends on organization.”? How, 


PAGE 


. 442 


. 442 


. 448 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME xxix. 





PAGE 
thanks to this exceptional part played by it, the canvass 
commands the whole political position in electoral life, that 
of the Association, of the candidate, and of the ‘‘ workers.”’ 
The importance which these latter take credit for in it ; their 
labour and its reward. The annoyance caused to the voters 
by the canvass, and the effect which it produces on ae 
manners “ : . 453 

IV. The ‘‘ stump” conducted on parallel lines with the canvass at 
election time. The principal object of the speeches is to 
raise ‘‘enthusiasm.’’ The sporting character of the emotions 
of the election campaign. Political advertising during the 
campaign, and the posters in particular F . 464 

V. The share of corruption in electioneering. The long-standing 
nature of corrupt practices in English political life and the 
unavailing struggle of the law with them during the last half- 
century. The appearance of the Caucus on the scene in no 
way changes the aspect of affairs, many Associations even 
being compromised in the illicit proceedings at the elections 
of 1880. The great reform of the Corrupt Practices Act of 
1883. How this Act has not produced its full effect owing 
to the interposition of the Associations, whose permanent 
existence and anonymous and collective character make 
them a screen for illegal electioneering operations. The 
absence of any precise definition in the Act of the candi- 
date’s responsibility for the doings of the Association, and 
the practical difficulties of establishing it in law. How the 
permanent and independent organization of the Associations 
enables them to paralyze the preventive clause of the Act, 
which limits electioneering expenses, by producing a solution 
of continuity between its disbursements for the election and 
the ‘‘ election expenditure’’ of the candidate; the special 
expedients resorted to for this purpose ; the distinction be- 
tween the ‘‘ prospective candidate ’’? and the ‘‘ actual candi- 
date.’’ How the Caucus has contributed to the changes in 
the forms and modes of corruption, which has become rather 
indirect and is practised in a wholesale fashion. Collective 
treating at ‘‘social meetings.’’? The preliminary outlay in- 
curred by the candidate with the same view. The promises 
of special legislation, in which the candidate and the Asso- 
ciation combine, give the finishing touch to indirect and 
collective corruption . . 468 

VI. The periodical rehearsals of the pperstions of the parties at local 
elections. The introduction of politics into local contests is 
of old standing. How it was practised by the oligarchical 
corporations of the era preceding 1855, and after the great 
municipal and parliamentary reforms ; the purchase of mu- 
nicipal votes in view of the parliamentary elections and the 


XXX CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





PAGE 
systematic contamination of local public life by the importa- 
tion of politics into municipal affairs. As time goes on the 
practice begins to decline, but the Birmingham Caucus 
appears on the scene, imparting fresh life to it and raising it 
to the level of a principle. Mr. Chamberlain’s theory. How 
the Birmingham method, after some opposition, gains a 
footing throughout the country, but soon proves destructive 
of healthy political life ; it has not affected the integrity of 
municipal administration, and why, although disclosing ob- 
jectionable symptoms of the subordination of the interests 
of the town to those of a political party ; but it has already 
succeeded in driving good citizens away from municipal life, 
in lowering the standard of local assemblies, and in making 
animosity between the citizens a fixture: ‘there is no cool- 
ing time.’? Things are growing worse. The experience of 
the city of Birmingham itself. Why the party organiza- 
tions are not at liberty to give up the System, the need for 
keeping the Organization in good order, and the opposition 
of the «workers ”? 3 . 482 

VII. The relations of the Association with the member elected by 
its efforts. The successive stages of the electoral depend- 
ence of the M.P., which kept pace with the extension of the 
suffrage and of means of communication, and with the grow- 
ing ascendency of free opinion. How the permanent organ- 
ization of the Caucus gave this dependence a rigid character, 
by assuming, in pursuance of its representative pretensions, 
a formal authority and a continuous supervision over the 
M.P. The abortive attempts at resistance to the Caucus. 
The various servitudes of the M.P. affecting his person, his 
influence, and his political conscience. The pressure put on 
the parliamentary conduct of the M.P. by the Associations 
makes him a delegate instead of a representative. The obli- 
gations of the M.P. are not to the Caucus alone, but the 
Caucus has the first mortgage over his political conscience . 493 


FIFTH CHAPTER 


Tue SuPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE Caucus . - é . 502 


The central organizations of the parties. I. The central 
Liberal Organization ; its constituent parts ; the Publication 
Department ; the great provincial branches . : . 502 

II. The twofold mission, local and national, of the central Oreun 
zation. How it intervenes in the work of the Associations 
and prepares the local forces of the party for the electoral 
battle. Its réle in the selection of candidates; to what 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME xx 





PAGE 
extent wire-pulling prevails; the compulsory preference 


which it has for wealthy candidates. The pecuniary re- 
sources of the central Organization : . 505 
III. How the Organization ensures the unity of movement of all 
the contingents of the party by means of its federative 
mechanism. The annual meetings of the delegates. How 
the resolutions are put into shape and voted ; no discussion ; 
no adequate control left for the opinion of the party. The 
attacks of the advanced Liberals on the Federation due 
to its fusion with the special Organization of the ‘ official 
leaders.’? The discontent invades the precincts even of the 
Federation, in which demands are put forward that its 
machinery should be made more representative and more 
democratic. These demands meet with only slight satis- 
faction . é F . 509 
IV. The limitations imposed on the power of the chiefs of the 
Federation and of the “official leaders ’’ by the authority of 
opinion. The nature of opinion and its double part; it isa 
capricious despot and a docile slave. Analysis of the rela- 
tions of the leaders with opinion. How the leaders try to 
follow it and how their conduct is determined by electoral 
preoccupations. How, in compliance with these preoccupa- 
tions or out of solicitude for the public interest, they fashion 
opinion ; the education of opinion. How and with what 
object they keep it on the alert in regard to current politics 514 
V. How the central Organization of.the party, in stirring up its 
adherents, influences alike the bulk of its own party, the 
electorate in general, and Parliament. Opinion growing 
like an avalanche. How this effect is contrived. The part 
which the local Associations play in it. The conditions 
under which opinion is turned out at will and under which 
it takes effect. How the reaction of the factitious demon- 
strations affects their authors or instigators themselves. The 
psychological reason, the branching-off of feelings produced 
by the sole fact of their manifestation. The pressure of the 
central Organization on the M.P.’s. The real range of influ- 
ence of the central Organization and its limits . O17, 
VI. The central Conservative Organization. Its double mechan- 
ism produced by the political evolution of Toryism. The 
federation of the popular Associations. The Central Office 
of the leaders. Their mutual relations. All the power is 
in the hands of the Central Office. Its provincial agents 
and the provincial Federations. How everything converges 
in the Central Office. The annual meetings of the delegates 
of the popular Associations ; the gentleman element and the 
plebeian element. Debate is free in these assemblies, but 
their decisions have no binding force. While lacking initia- 


Xxxii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





; PAGE 
tive and authority of its own, the popular Tory Organiza- 


tion, none the less, brings about the play of opinion in the 
interest of the party. How the economy of the Tory system 
does but accentuate the traits peculiar to each Organization. 523 


SIXTH CHAPTER 


AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS . “ ‘ F . 5380 
I. Political organizations of women. ‘The autecedents of tne 
intervention of women in politics from the close of the 
eighteenth century down to the Reform of 1867. The 
impetus given since 1868; women canvassers and speakers 
at electoral meetings, especially at the general election of 
1880 : r 5 . 530 
II. The women politicians fighting at the outset as s free lances are 
regularly enrolled, for the first time, in the Primrose League, 
founded by the Tories as a militia of ‘‘ moral order,’’ appeal- 
ing to ali the living forces of society without distinction of 
rank. ‘ithe principles of the League and the unfounded 
pretensions which it extracts from them to pose as inde- 
pendent of ee parties ; it is in the service of the Tory 
party . a : i : F . 534 
il. The organization of. the League. The grades of its knight- 
hood. ‘The badges. The local Habitations and the Grand 
Habitation with the Grand Council. The relations of the 
Habitations with the Conservative Associations. How the 
members of the League, and the women in particular, work 
up the districts for the good of the ‘‘ cause’ ; their co-opera- 
tion in the Registration canvass; their daily propaganda ; the 
distribution of political He ee ; the lectures and their 
general tendency . A . 538 
IV. The real weapon of the League is the social action of its 
upper-class members. The ‘‘ social meetings’’ and the fétes 
organized by the League for the benefit of the masses; the 
‘*union of classes’? completed by the union of sexes. The 
skilful exploitation of self-love and vanity along the whole 
line of society on the principle of ‘‘ Do not argue, but take 
them in socially.””>, How the permanent supply of social 
consideration provided by the League replaces the time- 
honoured practices of electoral corruption hampered by the 
new law. The controversy on the use of social influence by 
the League as an offensive weapon against its eS 
boycotting . . 541 
V. The women who make the League a success are by no means 
the controllers of it; the real power is wielded by men. In 
general the government of the League is autoritarian, the 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME XXXill 





Grand Habitation is only a show assembly, the local Habi- geae 


tations have no life of their own, and are prevented from 
developing one : . 547 
VI. The gratification of snobbery and the attraction of the festivi- 
ties offered by the League are not enough to account for its 
extraordinary success. This is due to other and deeper 
causes: to the levelling of barriers between class and class, 
which it has managed to bring about to a certain extent, 
and to its appearing to meet the want, long felt by society, 
of a political cement less artificial than that of the machinery 
of party organization. Do the instruments and the methods 
employed to produce these effects contribute to a healthy 
political life? Is it true that the Primrose League has a bene- 
ficial influence on manners, develops public spirit, and pre- 
vents the advent of a mechanically wire-pulled democracy ? 548 
VII. The Liberals combat the Primrose League with Liberal Asso- 
ciations of women. The autonomist basis of their organiza- 
tion. The lofty social ideal with which the Women’s Liberal 
Associations started. The composition of their contingents. 
Their meetings. Wherein their modus operandi differs from 
that of the Primrose League; the points of resemblance. 
What has become of the ideal of action conceived by the 
Liberal women; the serious efforts made to put it into 
practice. The relations of the Women’s Liberal Associa- 
tions with the Liberal party. The canvassers and platform ~ 
speakers supplied by the Women’s Associations to the party. 
Their co-operation, however, is less useful to it than that of 
the Primrose Dames to the Tory party. The difference of 
opinion among Liberal women on the question of female par- 
liamentary suffrage leads to the establishment of two central 
organizations, the Liberal Federation and the Liberal Asso- 
ciation. The different temperament of the rival sisters. 
The Liberal Unionist Women’s Organization F . 552 
VIL The participation of women in the struggles of parties, sanc- 
tioned by the necessities of the war which they wage on each 
other, does not as yet meet with the unanimous approbation 
of men. The complaints against ‘‘ women’s electioneering.”’ 
What the husbands think. The electioneering extravagances 
in which women indulge; the singing of couplets. The readi- 
ness of women to rush into militant politics ; it becomes for 
them a new source of moral emotions, which strike the imagi- 
nation and give more scope even to their domestic virtues ; 
cabotinage is also satisfied thereby - . A “ . 557 


XXXiv CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





SEVENTH CHAPTER 


PAGE 
AUXILIARY AND RivaL ORGANIZATIONS (continued) : : . 561 


I. Special organizations of political speakers. The Eighty Club; 
how this association formed for the free propaganda of Lib- 
eral principles has become a piece of the machinery of the 
party. The United Club on the Tory side. These ‘“‘ speak- 
ing clubs’’ are also nurseries of candidates . : . 561 

II. Non-political organizations allied with the party organizations 
for the defence of special interests. The most important 
are connected with the Church and the public-house; the 
Liberation Society and the Church Defence Institution ; the 
Licensed Victuallers’ Association and the United sank 
Alliance ; . 563 

III. Political organizations which emulate the official party organi- 
zations. Their abortive attempts to obtain a footing. The 
examples of the Liberal League and the National Conserva- 
tive League. The position of the National Reform Union, 
which tries to provide an organization for advanced and 
independent Liberals. The proved impossibility of the 
existence within the limits of the party of rival and inde- 
pendent organizations . ; . 567 

IV. An independent organization has ‘lately been created only 
through a revolt against the historic parties, in the interests 
of ‘*Labour.’? Confined at the outset to efforts to bring 
‘¢ Labour Members” into the House, without any idea of 
class antagonism or hostility towards the orthodox parties, 
the movement, upheld mainly by Trades Unionists, is mo- 
nopolized, after 1890, by the Socialists, who declare war on 
the regular parties because they are all, without distinction, 
tools of capitalism. Even the doctrinaire Socialists of the 
Fabian Society are up in arms against the Liberal party, 
which becomes, in a special degree, the target of the ‘‘ labour 
party.’’ Attacks on the ‘‘ Labour Members”? of the Liberal 
party and on its Organization, which is accused of making 
away with labour representation in the distribution of candi- 
datures. The independents engage, without much success, 
in the electoral contest of 1892, and set up an organization 
throughout the country called the Independent Labour Party. 
The collectivist programme of the I. L. P.; its contingents 
from a social and intellectual point of view. Its ethical 
tendencies. The religious feeling which animates it finds its 
highest expression in the ‘‘ Labour Church.’’ The fervour 
of the I. L. P. men, who are the only ones who ‘‘ pay for 
their own politics.”” Their ardour in diffusing political cul- 
ture. Sectarian in their doctrines, they are autoritarian in 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME XXXV 





PAGE 
their organization; their inflexible discipline. ‘‘ Labour 


candidates’’ in the local assemblies. The I. L. P. in the 
general election of 1895. Without obtaining any immediate 
success for their party, they exert a dissolvent action on the 
two great parties in the State : 5 : 5 : . 569 


EIGHTH CHAPTER 


SUMMARY . s - 3 F z A ; ‘ : z . 580 


I. General view of the réle of the Caucus. Its design tending 
to make party government more democratic obtained but 
a very limited success, which lies more in form than in 
essence. How the application, essayed by the Caucus, of 
the democratic principle in all its strictness, even to extra- 
constitutional political relations, has but accentuated the 
inevitable divergence between institutions and manners pro- 
duced by the electoral reform of 1867, and has offered only 
the mechanical contrivance of organization for reconciling 
them. Deposed in theory, the middle class recovers power 
by surreptitious devices, in spite of the democratized organi- 
zation of the party. However, from other points of view, 
this organization has really enhanced the importance of small 
folk in the party counsels, and has contributed especially to 
their rise in the social scale . ; 5 z . 580 

II. But the Caucus has done.nothing to raise the public spirit of 
the masses. Its radical inability to serve as an instrument 
of political education. Far from stimulating the exercise of 
political judgment, it tended to stereotype opinion, though 
in this it was co-operating with a general movement, the 
effect of which was to obliterate individuality ; ‘‘we now 
think in battalions.”» How the Caucus, by making the 
unity of the party an object of pious devotion dispensing 
with the necessity of professing reasoned principles, devel- 
oped impatience of discussion, fanaticism, and intolerance, 
while inclining men’s minds towards moral and intellectual 
opportunism, towards a policy of ‘‘ quarterly dividends.”’ 
How these properties of the Caucus made it an admirable 
vehicle for the new political tendencies, for Radicalism, 
started after 1868, which brought with it formal and senti- 
mental democracy . ; . 584 

III. How this democracy was also furthered by the ‘modus operandi 
of the Caucus, which appealed by preference to the emotions 
and which employed wholesale, rigidly acting processes, regu- 
lated beforehand by cut-and-dried methods. How these 
methods worked on behalf of an external orthodoxy had 
the effect of settling all the political relations aimed at by 


Zxxyi CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 





PAGE 
the Caucus, whether manifestations of reason or demonstra- 


tions of political feeling were involved, ina mechanical way 587 
IV. How the dwindling of individuality and the development of 
formalism in political relations culminated in the sphere of 
the leadership ; how the too rigid application of the principle 
of autonomy in the organization of the party has parcelled 
out the leadership for the benefit of local mediocrity, and 
how unqualified adhesion to the party creed, converted into 
the supreme political virtue and ascertained by the ma- 
chinery of the Organization, has given importance especially 
to conventional and external qualities in public men. Far 
from having eliminated the plutocratic element and the 
influence of social rank, the Caucus makes use of them 
itself. The monopoly of leadership has only changed its 
aspect ; being more manufactured, it is more divided and 
less responsible. The growing influence of the ‘‘ worker.” 
‘*¢ Electioneering is now quite a business.’”’ To what exten 
the Caucus favours the rise of the professional politician. 
How it comes about, in the long run, that the design formed 
by the Caucus of accelerating the democratic process in 
political society and of organizing public life into a moral 
whole has failed, and that it tends rather to set up a govern- 
ment by machine instead of a responsible government by 
human beings, and offers society in quest of a new political 
synthesis a purely mechanical one : . 590 
V. The réle of the Caucus in the proper sphere of parties. To 
what extent it ensured, by means of its organization, a real 
representation to the various elements of the party and 
proved itself able to serve as a faithful and independent 
mouthpiece of opinion. How the Caucus sometimes hurried 
the party and at others prevented it from moving on freely. 
How it maintained cohesion in the ranks of the party, not 
so much by its intrinsic force as by the office of standard- 
bearer of the party which it assumed. Yet it swelled the 
contingents of the party by attracting into it the ‘‘ blanks” 
through its Organization, which popularized the style and 
title, the abstract notion of the party, so slow to lay hold 
of the popular mind. But eventually the Caucus proved 
powerless to stop party divisions, they being an inevitable 
effect of the growing complexity of social relations, which 
has long since smitten and doomed the classic dualism of 
parties with their old cohesion. Being intent on the idea of 
restoring this cohesion, and having none but mechanical 
means and methods at its disposal for reuniting the incon- 
gruous elements, the Caucus was of necessity led to pave 
the way for government by machine. Being unable to set 
the old party system on its legs again, the Caucus has 


CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME XXXVIl 





PAGE 
even aggravated its evils by investing party tyranny with 


legal claims, by doing away with freedom of candidatures, 
and by usurping the monopoly of party orthodoxy, and 
drawing therefrom a power of moral coercion over its fol- 
lowers. No refuge from the inexorable party orthodoxy save 
in schism ; no place for free or independent organizations . 596 
VI. The Caucus has not improved the working of parliamentary 
government either ; on the contrary, it has helped to warp 
its representative principle, to disturb the equilibrium in 
the relations between the parliamentary leaders with the 
Members and in those between Parliament and public opin- 
ion. It has diminished the element of personal confidence 
in the relations of the electors with the candidates, and 
especially with the Members, and has appropriated the obli- 
gations of the M.P. to his constituents. The Member having 
been transformed by the Caucus into a delegate with dimin- 
ished responsibility and independence, the great parliamen- 
tary leaders leaning directly on the electoral body have only 
become more powerful and more autocratic, to the detriment 
of the equilibrium which Cabinet government presupposes as 
between Members and party leaders; more than this, the 
leaders can make use of the Caucus to force the hand of the 
Members in the House without compromising themselves 
personally. The help given by the Caucus to the parlia- 
mentary leaders, however, imposes obligations on them, 
sometimes of an onerous kind. How the arbitrament of 
opinion has more difficulty in making itself felt in the par- 
liamentary sphere, owing to the interposition of the Caucus. 
The general reservation, subject to which the deterioration 
of parliamentary government, as‘well as the other political 
effects credited to the Caucus, are attributable to it, inas- 
much as the ‘*‘ Caucus’’ represents but one of the aspects in 
the complex whole formed by the currents constituting the 
‘¢democratic movement,’’ and is the mirror as well as the 
focus of the phenomena which it has manifested . z . 605 
VII. How the dissolvent action of the forces represented by the 
Caucus has been attenuated in practice by opposing influences 
of a sentimental kind, —such as the traditional authority 
of the landlords, of the Church ; the fascination which rank 
still exercises, even over the Radical masses; the excep- 
tional prestige of illustrious leaders ; the personal ascendency 
of character and knowledge, —as well as by local considera- 
tions and prosaic anxieties about material interests. The 
Caucus has not made sufficient allowance for the living 
forces of society. Again, the progress of the Caucus has 
been hampered by the slenderness of its material resources 
and by the shortcomings, as well as the merits, of its own 


XXXVI1l CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME 


\ 





PAGE 
personnel. After all, the Caucus is still far from being 


‘¢enthroned on the ruins of the British Constitution”? . = O12 
VIII. Still, the living forces which hold the Caucus in check tend to 
decline. The personal influences of rank, as well as of char- 
acter and knowledge, have more and more difficulty in com- 
ing forward, owing to the excessive extension of the towns 
and the growing urban absenteeism which estranges men 
from each other, especially the rich and the poor, not to 
mention the obstacles raised by the Caucus, which invariably 
insists on the shibboleth of the party and by its organiza~- 
tion rather favours the rise of local mediocrity. ‘‘ Defer- 
ence’’ is declining and will continue to decline, the Caucus 
contributing thereto, even on the Tory side. With the 
solidarity of the great religious bodies, which is growing 
weaker by the help of liberty, another old living force is 
passing away. At the same time political apathy is infecting 
society, and is tending to drive away the cultivated classes 
from public life without bringing the new strata into it. 
This dawn of a separation between society at large and the 
minority engaged in politics is accompanied by the oblitera- 
tion of the distinctive principles which divided the parties, 
so that the latter will be reduced to the e*ndition of simple 
aggregates with nothing but a mechanical or#anization for a 
vital system. The vacuum created owing to the Caucus will 
be filled by the Caucus itself, and instead of being a means, 
the party Organizations, henceforth representing nothing but 
convention, will become an end to which everything will «6 
subordinated, in defiance of real interests and to the det- 
riment of the purity of public manners. Premonitory symp- 
toms of this state of things, in municipal life for instance, 
and apprehensions excited from this point of view by the 
proposed payment of Members of Parliament. Symptoms 
which bid fair to slightly hamper the upward movement 
of the Organizations, such as the growing scepticism with 
regard to political parties or the Socialist secession. The 
light which can be thrown on all these data and all these 
forecasts and in general on the whole problem of the organi- 
zation of the electoral masses by the more ample experience 
of the American section of the Anglo-Saxon world : . 618 


PREFACE 


AttTHoueH political parties are as old as popular govern- 
ment itself, their nature, their forces, and the modes in which 
they have been organized have received comparatively little 
attention either from historians or from writers on what is 
beginning to be called political science. Something has been 
said, and by no one perhaps so well as by Edmund Burke, 
upon the theory and aim of Party, and the functions which it 
ought to discharge; and historical accounts, though seldom 
either full or philosophical, have been given of the develop- 
ment and career of the two great parties in England and in 
the American Union. But no one has, so far as I know, pro- 
duced any treatise,,containing a systematic examination and 
description of tk2 structure of parties as organizations gov- 
erned by settled rules and working by established methods. 
Even in the United States, where party organization early 
attained a completeness and effective power unapproached in 
any o Sther country, I could not find, when in 1883 I began to 
study and was seeking to portray the institutions of that coun- 
try, any account of the very remarkable and well-compacted 
scheme of organization which had been at work there for forty 
or fifty years; and noted that among even the best-educated 
men there were few who had mastered its details. The his- 
torical action of the parties, their principles or tenets, their 
local distribution, the social influences that pervaded them, 
the characters of the men who had led them, — these were the 
matters on which attention had been fixed, to the neglect of 
the less attractive and less conspicuous questions connected 
with the machinery by which they worked. There was no 
book on which one could draw,’ and the persons whom I in- 
terrogated usually seemed surprised that a stranger should 
feel interested in enquiries of the kind. Still less has any 

1T note with interest that M. Ostrogorski says in his preface that he was 
struck by the same fact when he began to study the subject. 

XXX1X 


xl PREFACE 





attempt been made in Europe to handle the topic as a whole. 
There is room, therefore, for a treatise which shall take Party 
Organization and Party Machinery for its specific subject, and 
shall endeavour to treat these phenomena of modern politics 
with a fulness commensurate to the importance of the part 
which they play to-day in popular governments. 

They have indeed now become so apparently essential a part 
of democratic institutions in the country which has seen their 
most complete development ‘that the traveller in the United 
States is disposed to ask how it happens that they are of such 
recent appearance in history, and how democracies in other 
ages and countries got on without them, seeing that in all 
popular governments there have been active and often ex- 
tremely fierce and violent parties. The answer is that popular 
governments have within the last hundred years entered upon 
a new phase, which is marked by two remarkable facts. The 
number of participants in the business of government is im- 
mensely greater, and the method of participation is much 
more pacific. The republics of antiquity, as well as those of 
medieval Germany (including Switzerland) and Italy, were 
each of them with few exceptions composed of an exceedingly 
small number of citizens participating in the control of the 
state as compared with those modern democracies which we 
see in the United States, in Britain and in her self-governing 
colonies, in France, in Belgium, in Norway. And in the second 
‘ place, these republics consisted of men accustomed to the use 
of arms, and ready to resort to arms on slight occasion, so that 
when party feeling rose above a certain temperature, physical 
force settled the dispute. Modern democracies consist of hun- 
dreds of thousands or even millions of voters, and their method 
of action is by dropping into boxes pieces of paper bearing the 
names of candidates. These absolutely new conditions re- 
quired new methods, and the inventive genius of man was not 
long in devising the methods. 

In England, the oldest example in the modern world of a 
large community whose government, though far from demo- 
cratic, had, at any rate since the seventeenth century, a sensi- 
ble infusion of the popular element, parties had existed for 
some two hundred years before the great extensions of the 
suffrage which came in 1867 and 1884. But the parties had 


PREFACE xu 





little or no organization in the sense we now give to the term. 
The members of a party were linked together by ties of reli- 
gious sympathy, or of economic interest, or of belief in a few 
broad ideas, or of attachment to particular families. The 
only occasions on which parties could act together by pacific 
methods were afforded by parliamentary elections. Down till 
1832, the number of voters in nearly all the boroughs was so 
small, and the control of one person, or a few persons, was 
so effective in most of those boroughs, that no organization of 
the voters was needed, while in the counties the influence of a 
few great landowning families supplied the necessary leader- 
ship when an election arrived. Political clubs, which after all 
touch only a small number of voters, were little known and 
unimportant before the Reform Bill of 1832. Local party 
associations are practically the growth, in'their present activity 
and power, of the last thirty-five years. 

In the United States the need of collecting and disciplining 
the voting power in which the strength of the parties lay, was 
sooner felt, first, because the number of voters was, in propor- 
tion to the total population, much larger than in England, and 
elections were much more frequent; secondly, because there 
existed a completely popular elective system of local govern- 
ment; thirdly, because elections of all kinds came oftener; and 
fourthly, because the number of offices given by popular elec- 
tion was larger. Yet in the United States it was not till the 
extensions of the electoral suffrage in the several States, which 
mark the period between 1810 and 1840, together with the 





corresponding democratization of the Sdministrative and judi- 
Gial machinery of State government, had gréatly increased the 
numberand power of voters and the number of elective offices 
thatthe portentous fabric of party c organization which we see 
toda began to be built up. Its foundations were laid be- 
as GV as es Tts completion can hardly be placed 
earlier than 1860. And it rose so quietly and gradually that 
the keen eye of Tocqueville, whose philosophic study of 
American democracy was published in 1834, had not noted 
its appearance, much less foreseen the tremendous power it 
was destined to exert. Nor indeed do I know of any Euro- 
pean visitor to the United States down to very recent times 
who seems to have been struck by it, or to have appreciated 











xlii PREFACE 





its importance. It has now grown to be a second ruling force 
in the country, in some respects fully as powerful as the offi- 
cial administrations which the Constitutions of the Nation and 
of the several States have established. It has become a sort of 
link between the legislative and the executive departments of 
the Federal Government, and may (in some aspects) almost be 
called a second and parallel government, directing that which 
the Constitution creates. Its unit, the Primary meeting, has 
in some States obtained a statutory recognition which aston- 
ishes English lawyers.’ 

This system of party organization in America, and the in- 
comparably simpler, ruder, and less effective system which the 
last thirty-five years have created in Great Britain, have now 
found in M. Ostrogorski a singularly painstaking and intelli- 
gent student. He is-both scientific in method and philosophi- 
cal in spirit. He has examined the facts with exemplary 
diligence. He has described them with a careful attention to 
the smallest details of the structure and working of the two 
systems, the English and the American. He has brought to 
the investigation of their phenomena a breadth of view which 
recognizes the large historical causes by which institutions are 
moulded, as well as an impartiality which shows no more leni- 
ency to the faults of the Republicans than to those of. the 
Democrats in the United States, to the errors of the Tories 
than to those of the Liberals in England. Leniency is indeed 
the last thing he shows to any party; and it is only in respect 
to the Rhadamanthine attitude he preserves throughout that I 
feel bound to utter a note of mild dissent. It is for American 
readers rather than for an Englishman to say how far his 
picture of the party machinery of the United States is over- 
charged with gloom, for gloomy it unquestionably is. As re- 
gards Great Britain, I can hardly doubt that his description, a 
minute, and on the whole accurate, as well as fair description, 
— though here and there his generalizations seem to me open 
to question, — will make upon a reader in some other country 
an impression darker than the realities of the case warrant. 
Taken one by one, the particular facts and incidents he states 


1 This side of party government has been ingeniously and instructively 
handled by Mr. Henry Jones Ford in his Rise and Growth of American 
Politics (1898). 


PREFACE xliii 





are (so far as I can judge) almost always correctly stated. It 
is the tendency to assume these facts and incidents to be more 
generally typical of English political methods as a whole than 
I believe them to be, and the omission of qualifying considera- 
tions, such as perhaps only an Englishman can fully appre- 
ciate, that may make his account suggest to those who do not 
possess an independent knowledge of England a judgment too 
unfavourable. I am myself an optimist, almost a professional 
optimist, as indeed politics would be intolerable were not a 
man grimly resolved to see between the clouds all the blue sky 
he can. But apart from all professional optimism, and allow- 
ing for the natural tendency of a citizen to view even the 
deficiencies of his own country with indulgent eyes, I cannot 
but think that M. Ostrogorski exaggerates the power and the 
poison of what he calls the Caucus in England, and that he 
does mot quite sufficiently allow for the healthy influences that 
are at work to correct whatever dangers its growth may in- 























valve. Party organization is a totally different thing in Eng- 





land from what it is in the United States. It isin the hands 
of a different class of men. It is almost wholly free from the 
more sordid elements which may enter into the interest men 
take in their party. M. Ostrogorski knows this, and indeed 
‘says it. But he seems, when he comes to judge English phe- 
nomena as a whole, and when he pronounces that English 
party organization is on the road to becoming what American 
party organization has become, to have been scarcely sufficiently 
influenced by it. 

It is chiefly to readers in America and in the British Colo- 
nies that this word of caution needs to be addressed. English- 
men will judge for themselves with how few or how many 
deductions they must take what M. Ostrogorski says of them. 
They will all be the better for knowing what a diligent, careful, 
and eminently honest foreign observer thinks of their party 
system, and they may find in his description warnings far from 
unneeded of the mischiefs which a wider and ranker growth of 
that system may breed. Yet they may draw some encourage- 
ment from the reflection that in the British self-governing colo- 
nies, including those Australasian colonies which seem to have 
gone farther towards a pure democracy than any other communi- 
ties, the party system has not developed upon American lines. 





xliv PREFACE 





Popular governments do not in all countries follow the same 
paths, nor show the same evils in equal measure. M. Ostro- 
gorski has wisely chosen to concentrate the attention of his 
readers upon the forces rather than the forms of democracy, 
since it is the forms that have hitherto been more largely dis- 
cussed. He has made a valuable contribution — perhaps the 
most valuable we have had in recent years—to what may be 
called the pathology of party government. But there are other 
maladies also to which democracy is liable. When the time 
comes for a scientific study of democratic government in gen- 
eral, the phenomena of Switzerland, of the British self-govern- 
ing colonies, and of France will throw much additional light 
upon the problems which free countries are, so far with imper- 
fect success, endeavouring to solve. 

To estimate the chances that those mischiefs will arrive, or 
to discuss the means of averting them, is no part of my duty 
in this preface, which is meant solely to call attention not only 
to the merits of these. volumes, but also to the high signifi- 
cance of their subject, as being at once an interesting branch 
of political science and also an important branch of politics 
as an art. It is, moreover, a branch likely to receive further 
development in Europe, for in the United States it has been 
already pushed so far that one can hardly imagine what more 
even American ingenuity can effect. Whatever may be thought 
of its value,—and I suppose that most sensible men would 
have preferred to leave parties unorganized, since their or- 
ganization involves enormous labour and expenditure of an 
un-reproductive kind,— Party Organization is a logical and 
inevitable consequence of party government in a large democ- 
racy. Where votes rule, and where great issues turn on the 
results of voting, and most of all where (as in America) a party 
victory means pecuniary gain or loss to a multitude of men, 
every effort will be made to attract the voters to the party 
flag, to keep them united under it, to bring them up to vote 
when the polling day arrives. The extent to which it becomes 
necessary to do this is, in the case of each political community, 
measured by the degree in which that community falls below 
the level of the ideal democracy. In the ideal democracy 
every citizen is intelligent, patriotic, disinterested. His sole 
wish is to discover the right side in each contested issue, and 

















= 


\ 


PREFACE xlv 





to fix upon the best man among competing candidates. His 
common sense, aided by a knowledge of the constitution of 
his country, enables him to judge wisely between the argu- 
ments submitted to him, while his own zeal is sufficient to 
carry him to the polling booth. Though it is usually assumed 
in platform speeches that the audience addressed are citizens 
of this attractive type, everybody knows that in all communi- 
ties, not only in Chicago, but even in Liverpool, let us say, or 
in Lyons, or in Leipzig, a large proportion of the voters are so 
indifferent, or so ignorant, that it is necessary to rouse them, 
to drill them, to bring them up to vote. The party leader who 
first sees what the new circumstances of the time call for gains 
an advantage, and the other party is obliged to follow suit. 
Once the business of organization is entered upon, each party 
has the strongest motive for endeavouring to make its own 
system effective, and to form its adherents into disciplined 
battalions. But this carries the community still further away 
from the democratic ideal of the intelligent independence of 
the individual voter, an ideal far removed from the actualities 
of any State.’ Qrganization and discipline mean the command 
of the leaders, the subordination and obedience of the rank and 
file; and they mean_also the growth of a party spirit which is 
in itself irrational, impelling men to vote from considerations 
which have little to do with a love of truth or a sense of justice, 
These are deviations from the democratic ideal which are bad 














enough; and if the motive of pecuniary advantage is added, a 


widely spread motive where the so-called Spoils System of the 
United States prevails, the state of things will evidently 
become still worse. 

If it is impossible to arrest the development of party organi- 
zations, what can be done to check their incidental evils ? 
The most drastic remedy would be to get rid of party govern- 
ment altogether, but though many political philosophers have 
called for this change, none has shown how it can be effected. 
M. Ostrogorski feels the importance of the question, and essays 
to answer it in the concluding chapters of his book. I have 
not the space to summarize or to examine the interesting sug- 
gestions which he puts forward on this topic. Practical poli- 


1] may perhaps be permitted to refer upon this point to an essay on Obedi- 
ence in a book entitled Studies in History and Jurisprudence (1901). 


af 


4 


xlvi PREFACE 





ticians will, as he himself foresees, be disposed to think his 
scheme either impossible to introduce, because too much op- 
posed to existing notions and habits, or impossible to work, 
or perhaps open to both these objections. Nevertheless, the 
suggestions made ought to be read and considered, for no 
one who is sensible of the evils that exist will lightly dismiss 
what comes from a writer whose acuteness and knowledge he 
will have recognized when he has perused the earlier descrip- 
tive parts of the treatise. 

Few books of our time show equal appreciation of the prob- 
lems democracy has to solve, or bring more useful materials 
and more acute criticism to their discussion. Reverting to the 
general question, let it be noted that there are three kinds of 
influence which an organization may employ to attract and hold 
voters.f One is the sordid inducement of personal gain, whether 
in the form of a money bribe, or in the hope of obtaining a place. 
From this our En glish party organizations are happily free, and 
it should be a prime aim of those who work them to avoid the 
least lapse towards such a dangerous quagmire. Another is 
social pressure, whether in the form of a coercion by the land- 
lord or the customer on the one hand, or in that of an appeal 
to snobbishness on the other. M. Ostrogorski finds this kind 
of influence largely used in England, and what he says of it 
“deserves. tobe pondered. The third is an appeal to the intel- 
“Ject and conscience of the voters through speeches and litera- 
ture. The making of such appeals bears a larger ratio to the 
total work done by political organizers in Great Britain than 
it does in America, though of course it is done there also on a 
large scale. It is obviously the safest channel into which the 
efforts of party workers can be turned, and if organizations 
made it their chief business, and did it with reasonable fair- 
ness, they would justify their existence and render a service 
to that diffusion of an intelligent interest in public affairs on 
which the welfare of democratic governments depends. There 
is perhaps no way of reducing the evils that necessarily flow 
from organized partisan activity so effective as that the public 
opinion of the community and the sense of public honour and 
duty in the chiefs of the parties should guide the subordinate 
workers of an organization towards this form of activity, and, 
as far as possible, away from the two other forms. 

I have referred to public opinion. After all, it is public 


PREFACE xlvii 





opinion which must keep the party organizations in check. 
There has happily been always, both in Britain and in America, 
a large body of voters who refuse to be “roped in” by the 
“workers” of she organizations, and who retain sufficient inde- 
pendence, ot only to think for themselves, but also to vote as 
they please and not as their party bids them. The love of 
truth, the disposition to apply moral standards to public ques- 
tions, the unselfish preference of national to sectional or party 
interests, are always to be found in a certain number of inde- 
pendent citizens, and the tone of public opinion depends upon 
the influence which such citizens exert. Others are not keenly 
interested in politics, nor perhaps very intelligent, yet they 
prefer to follow their own impressions rather than submit 
to party dictation. These independent citizens (of both types) 
are sometimes the victims of error, and are, of course, like all 
citizens, liable to be misled by the press, which cannot, even in 
the freest countries, be trusted to present both sides of a case 
with fairness, because one side may have a far larger command 
of the social and economic forces which — not perhaps in any 
corrupt way, but by the necessities of the case — affect the 
press, and because writers in the press, like other men, are 
naturally disposed to say what will please their readers, to fall 
in with and intensify the passion of the moment, and to extol 
their country even where they would serve her better in point- 
ing out her mistakes. Still, it is among these independent 
citizens that the reaction against the misdeeds of a dominant 
party begins to be effective. It is they who keep the parties 
in order by casting their weight, now on the side of one party, 
now on the other, according to their judgment of the merits of 
each. It is they who at all times hold in check, not only the 
spirit of faction, but also the tendency of party organizations 
to push to excess methods with which, used in moderation, 
modern democracies seem unable to dispense. In the United 
States, formidable as the organizations are, the independent 
citizens are, I think, more active and more sensible of their 
duty at this moment than they were thirty years ago. In Eng- 
land, happily for England, the organizations have not ceased 
to be controlled by men occupying a position which makes 
them amenable to public opinion, nor have they as yet de- 
parted far from those traditions in which the strength of 
English free government resides. JAMES BRYCE. 


NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR 


Tue difficulties of this translation have been lightened by 
the kind co-operation of the author, who has not only responded 
most readily to all my requests for information and help, but 
has also been good enough to read the proofs of the transla- 
tion and to favour me with a number of observations and 
suggestions which, owing to his grasp of the subject and 
remarkable knowledge of the English language, have proved 
of great service. Many of the knotty points have been care- 
fully discussed between us, and in no instance has he failed 
to make his meaning perfectly clear to me. For this valuable 
assistance I desire to express my warm acknowledgments. . 


BC; 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


‘¢ Tl faut une science politique nouvelle 4 un monde tout nouveau. 

‘¢‘Mais c’est & quoi nous ne songeons guére; placés au milieu d’un 
fleuve rapide, nous fixons obstinément les yeux vers quelques débris 
qu’on apercoit sur le rivage, tandis que le courant nous entraine et nous 
pousse & reculons vers les abimes.’?!— TocquEvI1LLe, De la Démocratie en 
Amérique, Introduction. 


In this book I investigate the working of democratic gov- 
ernment. But it is not institutions which are the object of 
my research: it is not on political forms, it is on political 
forces that I dwell. Hitherto attention has been too exclu- 
sively directed to the study of political forms. The method 
of observation itself, introduced into political science with the 
Esprit des Lois, was practised more on institutions, on laws, 
the concrete individuals who create and apply them being, for 
a long time, wholly neglected. The very idea of political 
forces as distinct from political forms was not sufficiently 
clear to men’s minds. Concealed at first by the relative sim- 
plicity of political life, in which forms and forces appeared to 
blend into one another, it had some difficulty in emerging even 
after the great outburst of political thought and the advent of 
liberty in the eighteenth century; that century was too much 
dominated by the metaphysical notion of man in the abstract, 
considered as the universal and unchangeable basis of the 
political order, and by the mechanical conception of the moral 
order. Again, the experience and the practice of liberty were 
needed for the part played by active wills and by their varied 
combinations in political life to assert itself and stand out in 


1 ** A new political science is wanted for an entirely new world. 

“But this is what we think very little about; placed in the middle of a 
rapid stream, we fix our gaze obstinately on a few débris that are seen upon 
the bank, while the current is sweeping us along and driving us backwards 
towards the abyss.”’ 

li 


li AUTHOR’S PREFACE 





clear relief. In proportion as democratic government developed 
and made political life more complex, the free play of political 
forces also developed and gained in complexity, and it became 
more and more necessary, for the best fulfilment of the objects 
of the body politic, to acquire an exact knowledge of the 
working of these forces. 

How is this knowledge of political forces to be acquired ? 
In the same way that the forces of nature are ascertained ; 
both of them are apprehended only in a state of motion which 
must be observed. The method of observation must be applied 
to political action, the manifestations of this action must be 
watched, and they will disclose to us the moods, the mental 
tendencies, the workings of the wills which set political society 
going. These observations will increase in value as they are 
brought to bear on acts which occur under more or less regu- 
lar aspects, in a more or less methodical manner. In other 
words, the best way to study political forces is to study politi- 
cal methods. Of course, to be successful, this investigation 
cannot be confined to a purely formal investigation of those 
methods. In that case it would scarcely have an academic 
interest, and, from a practical point of view, would at the most 
be serviceable only to political wire-pullers in search of useful 
notions. To really understand the character of social action, 
its modes of procedure must be studied in the light of the 
character of those who apply them, and_of the social and 
political conditions in which their wills are formed _and mani- 
fested. It is only in this sense that the investigation of 
political methods will have, in addition to a philosophical 
value, a genuine practical value. It is a study of the methods 
of democratic government conceived in this spirit, a study of 
social and political psychology, based on observation, that I 
have tried to undertake, and it is that which is the aim of 
this book. 

To accomplish this purpose it was necessary in the first 
place to find in political life a field where the modes of action 
are in a way concentrated and systematized, a field offering 
a clearly defined sphere for observation and a firm vantage- 
ground for the observer. These seemed to me to be presented 
by the life of organized political parties. I mean parties 
organized not only inside Parliament, which is henceforth 

















AUTHOR’S PREFACE liii 





merely the great stage on which the action prepared elsewhere 
is unfolded, but organized in the country itself on a more or 
less wide and comprehensive basis. Wherever this life of 
parties is developed, it focusses the political feelings and the 
active wills of the citizens; it is essentially the continuous 
application of the methods of action of political society. The 
material organization of parties appeared to me to offer the 
required post of observation, and its historical growth the 
landmarks for tracing the development of the political ten- 
dencies and forces themselves, which would enable me to 
ascend from the present to the past, from the effects to the 
causes, and to consider the working of democratic government 
as a whole, not in the inanimate fabric of political forms, but 
the midst of living society. 

The various countries living under the democratic régime 
were not all equally suited for this study of political forces 
within the sphere of organized parties, because the life of the 
parties and their organization do not everywhere exhibit the 

ame fulness and the same regularity. In almost every 
country of the European continent the organization of parties 
working regularly outside Parliament is still but little de- 
veloped; the cadres of the parties are formed on the eve of 
the elections, and break up soon afterwards, their contingents 
often present only floating masses. Two countries are in 
advance of all the others in this respect. They are England 
and the United States, which the greater development that 
liberty has attained there has already placed at the head of 
political humanity on other grounds. The study of political 
phenomena which I had in view could consequently be pursued 
with most advantage in those two countries, and in truth 
could not be pursued with the desired comprehensiveness 
save in those countries. It is they in fact which have pro- 
vided me with the materials of my investigation. Yet the 
range of this investigation is not confined to the countries of 
the Anglo-Saxon world; mutatis mutandis it extends also to 
the other countries under a democratic form of government. 
To admit this, there is no need to accept in all its strictness 
the theory of Auguste Comte, according to which, at every 
moment of history, the people whose evolution is most ad- 
vanced represents the whole of humanity. The variety of 


liv AUTHOR’S PREFACE 





national characters and of historical antecedents ought not to 
be ignored, but the traits common to different countries pre- 
dominate in existing civilization, where political institutions 
are nearly everywhere framed on the same model, where the 
social conditions produced by the economic evolution are the 
same, and where, consequently, men are subjected to similar 
influences and move on parallel lines. 

Owing to the nature of the investigation which I undertook, 
the greater part of the materials had to be gathered from real 
life and not from libraries. If the organization of parties has 
blossomed abundantly in the Anglo-Saxon world, this was not 
the case with the documents on the subject, either as regards 
the present or the past of that organization. In this respect I 
found myself confronted with a void when, about fifteen years 
ago, I began my work. The facts relating to it were evidently 
not deemed worthy of the attention of historians and political 
thinkers. In the press they were relegated to unimportant 
paragraphs, unless they happened to be connected with politi- 
eal scandals or abuses. Comprehensive writings on the sub- 
ject were non-existent. The information which might have 
been discovered in the files of old newspapers, in magazine 
articles, in pamphlets, or even in more or less important 
works or official documents, had never been treated scientifi- 
cally. What had to be done was to bring all this category 
of facts for the first time within the purview of science. 
After having cast a glance at the organization of the English 
parties, I turned my attention to America, where the already 
lengthy career of the democratic régime and of the popular 
organization of parties promised more abundant sources of 
information and a more extensive view of the phenomena 
which I wanted to observe. I approached the subject on its 
historical side, and endeavoured to trace the development of 
the régime of parties and of their organization in the coun- 
try, during the first century of the American Republic. The 
result of my labours was given to the public in the form of a 
series of articles inserted in the Annales des Sciences Poli- 
tiques of 1888-1889. Just as the publication of these articles 
was coming to an end, Mr. Bryce’s monumental work, The 
American Commonwealth, appeared, containing the first me- 
thodical description of the existing party system, which was 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE ly 





a revelation, not only to readers in the Old World, but to the 
Americans themselves. 

In England the organization of parties founded on a popular 
basis was of very recent creation, and its study presented far 
greater difficulties than that of the American parties. To 
obtain the data for it, I have had to engage in a long and 
minute enquiry, carried out in England itself, and based to a 
great extent on personal testimony and on direct observation 
of political life in general and of the working of party organi- 
zation in particular. ° I have often had to collect by my own 
exertions the raw material that was to serve for generaliza- 
tions, to search for it in one town after another, to make en- 
quiries on both sides in order to elicit the truth, which was 
obscured by political strife or simply by local rivalry. The 
facts and the impressions as well as the few documents which 
I obtained led me to generalizations which I constantly veri- 
fied by putting myself in touch with men and things. I broke 
up my generalizations into concrete and often very matter-of- 
fact questions which I put to my interlocutors, whom I treated 
not only as witnesses, but also as subjects of direct observa- 
tion, whether they belonged to the staff of the party organiza- 
tion or to other classes of the community. Then I recast my 
generalizations by adding to them or pruning them in accord- 
ance with my new impressions. After operating in this way 
for years in various parts of the country, without neglecting 
the literary research required for the historical part of the 
subject, I seemed to have arrived at conclusions worthy of 
being presented to the public. JI mention these details because 
I hold that I owe the public an account of my method, to 
enable it to fix my responsibility, which is certainly a heavy 
one. I can seldom shelter myself behind authorities, quote 
my authors, in the contemporary part of my work; all the 
- information which has been given me, all the impressions 
which have been conveyed to me, have been accepted by me 
for what they were worth; I made what appeared to me the 
best use of them, in all liberty and, I venture to say, in all 
honesty. JI alone am responsible for all the comments on the 
facts which I have put forward, and often for the authen- 
ticity of the facts themselves, for in my turn I appear as a 
witness before the public. I acknowledge the responsibility 


a. 


lvi AUTHOR’S PREFACE 





which rests upon me, and I accept it in its entirety. What I 
have just said of course applies also to the American part of 
my enquiry, which I undertook after having exhausted my 
subject in England. Having mastered the method which I 
tested in my English researches, I began the study of America 
over again and pursued it on that method in the United States. 

In this way I have succeeded in putting together a whole, 
which, under the form of a scientific investigation, alike his- 
torical and critical, of the régime of organized parties, is in 
reality an investigation of the working of government in de- 
mocracy and of the vital problems which it puts before existing 
society, and which involve the whole future of our political 
civilization. The miscellaneous facts which hitherto have 
been disdainfully thrown into the rubbish-heap of history and 
of the political news of the day have enabled me to rise step 
by step to the highest generalizations of political speculation 
and of the political art. If the well-nigh religious respect 
with which we are accustomed from our youth to surround the 
names of those who have made their mark as thinkers allowed 
the current use of the forms of language which they employed 
to describe their works, if it were permissible to apply their 
formulas to a modest undertaking, I might have recalled the 
expression, Proles sine matre creata. I do not say this by way 
of boast: a student of political phenomena, having observed 
them in real life, amid the perpetual flux of things as difficult 
to grasp as the running stream, I have received many a lesson 
of humility. I do not say it either by way of excuse, to ex- 
tenuate the divergence which there is between my design and 
the execution of it: I have honestly done what I could. 

The object of my ambition being a scientific investigation, 
that is to say a calm, unbiassed one, my chief concern was 
absolute independence of mind in observation and perfect sin- 
cerity in the statement of its results. I have said all that 
appeared to me to be true, without allowing myself to be influ- 
enced by any extraneous consideration, without being afraid 
of the constructive charges which might be brought against 
me, without fearing either to be inconsistent, in pointing out 
the good and the bad in the same community, in the same sets, 
in the same category of political conceptions or aspirations. 
The only fear which I might have felt on this store was that 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE lvii 





of becoming, or at least of appearing to be, the mouthpiece of 
a party, the spokesman of a sect. But I hope that I have 
escaped this danger, and it is with conviction that I borrow 
the words of a celebrated writer who was also a man of action: 
“T send this book into the world with the hope that it will, 
displease all political sects.) 

Before laying down my pen I must refer to the help which 
I have received from many persons, in England as well as the 
United States, in the performance of my task. It could never 
have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion without this 
assistance, which I have met with on all sides and which has 
been extended to me both liberally and straightforwardly, and 
in the most varied forms, such as personal interviews, com- 
munication of documents, written answers to lengthy inter- 
rogatories, notes written specially for me on certain questions, 
etc. As the names of all the persons who have been good 
enough to place themselves at my disposal would have made 
a very long list, I am obliged, to my great regret, to mention 
only a few of them here. Several of these persons I have 
been grieved to see pass away, and I can only pay a grateful 
tribute to their memory. First and foremost among them 
comes Thomas Nicols Roberts, Esq., formerly chief agent of 
the Liberal party in England. A veteran of the Liberal organi- 
zation, who supervised the electoral registration department 
of the Anti-Corn Law League, he placed at my disposal his 
professional knowledge and his connections in the country 
with a kindness only equalled by his simplicity. I am glad 
to be able to tender my thanks to several other persons whose 
assistance was not less valuable to me. I am under great obli- 
gations, in England, to Arthur G. Symonds, Esq., M. A., of the 
National Reform Union. I also owe warm acknowledgments 
to R. W. E. Middleton, Esq., of the Central Conservative Office, 
to George Lane-Fox, Esq., of the Primrose League, and, last 
but not least, to several members of Parliament of the differ- 
ent parties, among whom I am anxious to mention Mr. James 
Bryce and Sir John Gorst, who initiated me into several points 
of English political life and gave me valuable introductions. 

The persons from whom I have received help in the United 








1 “Ich schicke ihn mit der Hoffnung in die Welt, dass er allen politischen 
Secten missfallen werde.’’ — F. C. DAHLMANN, Die Politik, Erster Band, 1835. 


]viii AUTHOR’S PREFACE 





States and from whom I continued to receive it after leaving 
the great American Republic were not less numerous. I would 
like to mention a few names with the expression of my warmest 
gratitude: R. R. Bowker, Esq., Roger Foster, Esq., Hon. Fred- 
erick William Holls, George McAneny, Esq., Hon. John de 
Witt Warner, of New York City; Hon. Andrew D. White, of 
Ithaca, N.Y.; Hon. William F. Harrity, Herbert Welsh, Esq., 
Hon. Clinton Rogers Woodruff, of Philadelphia; Moorfield 
Storey, Esq., and Edmund M. Wheelwright, Esq., of Boston ; 
Roger W. Cull, Esq., of Baltimore; Edwin Burritt Smith, Esq., 
of Chicago; Frederick W. Dewart, Esq., of St. Louis, Mo., now 
at Spokane, Wash.; Hon. James M. Allen, of San Francisco; 
Professor Henry Dickson Bruns, M.D., of New Orleans; Hon. 
P. W. Meldrim,of Savannah, Ga.; the Secretaries of State of 
thirty-five States of the Union and the United States Civil 
Service Commission; who have sent me important official 
documents. 


While I was writing the last chapters of this book and it 
was passing through the press, events occurred in the political 
sphere and in the domain of legislation which naturally could 
not be commented on here or mentioned. But as these new 
facts do not alter the conclusions at which I have arrived, 
there is no need, either for the reader or for me, to trouble 
about them. 


MO. 
Paris, March, 1902. 


FIRST PART 


THE advent of democracy shattered the old framework of 
political society. The hierarchy of classes and their internal 
cohesion were destroyed, and the time-honoured social ties 
which bound the individual to the community were severed. 
As the old fabric had to be replaced by a new one, the prob- 
lem was to find out how the individual could be reunited to 
society, in what new organization both could be incorporated, 
so as to assure form and permanency to their existence. The 
supremacy accorded to numbers in the State complicated mat- 
ters by raising the question how the promiscuous crowd of old 
and young, of learned and unlearned, of rich and poor, who 
were all declared collectively arbiters of their political desti- 
nies, would be able to discharge their new function of “sover- 
eign.” The representative form of government adopted by 
modern democracies simplifies the problem in appearance only 
without touching its essence, for after all national representa- 
tion proceeds from the great mass of the people. 

Without, perhaps, having considered this problem in its 
general aspect, or having defined all its factors, some modern 
democracies have endeavoured to solve it amidst the march of 
events and in a somewhat empirical fashion. This solution 
consists in a methodical organization of the electoral masses, by 
extra-constitutional means and in the form of disciplined and 
permanent parties. The experiment has been carried to con- 
siderable lengths in the Anglo-Saxon countries of Europe and 
America, and the experience gained incontestably possesses 
great importance. Under what conditions has it been inaugu- 

3 


4 DEMOCRACY AND THE ORGANIZATION [FIRST 





rated ? What has been its progress and development, and its 
influence on political life? Does it bring us nearer the possi- 
bility of embracing the political society which issued from the 
democratic revolution in a new synthesis? In a word, what are 
the results which it has given or which it holds out? The 
answer to these questions will be as interesting to the histo- 
rian as to the political thinker and the thinking politician. 
Both the historian and the politician, the former in order 
to bring this answer into distinct relief, and the latter in 
order to arrive at a better comprehension of it, must begin 
by forming a clear idea of all the factors of the problem in 
their successive development. This can be done more easily 
in England than in any other country with a democratic 
government, France not excepted. In the French democracy, 
which sprang from the Revolution, the new order of things 
has been more than once called in question and its progress 
violently interrupted. These interruptions, with the disap- 
pointments and hopes to which they alternately gave rise, 
made the old order appear far more remote from us on the 
stage of history than it was in reality. And as, in addition to 
this, it underwent a long agony before it succumbed, the 
break-up of the old society and the evolution of the new one 
do not always exhibit a direct and distinct connection of cause 
and effect to the investigator. In this respect the England of 
our days presents incomparable advantages. Hardly two gen- 
erations back she was still an aristocratic and feudal society ; 
at the present moment she is completely drawn into the demo- 
cratic current, with no inclination to retrace her steps or to 
wrangle about the results obtained. Compressed into a more 
limited space of time and uninterrupted in its progress, the 
democratic evolution of England pursues its course before the 
spectator, working out its logical development under his eyes 
and presenting an orderly sequel of premise and conclusion. 
This is especially the case with the problem which we pro- 
pose to study. We shall begin with England for this reason, 
and, in accordance with the plan sketched out, start by con- 
sidering the unity of the old English society with its sponta- 
neous connection and, so to speak, organic cohesion; we shall 
take note of its disintegration and then deal with the endeav- 
ours to restore unity to it in the sphere of politics; this will 


PART | OF POLITICAL PARTIES 5 





bring us eventually to the attempts to create a methodical 
organization of the electoral masses; we shall make a special 
study of that organization and pursue its evolution as far as 
possible; arrived at its extreme limit, we shall return to the 
starting-point in order to survey the horizon and ascertain from 
this vantage-ground the direction of the paths opened in the 
country traversed, with the view of discovering, if possible, 
the line of the main road leading to the goal. 


FIRST CHAPTER 
THE OLD UNITY 
a 


Tue state of political society in England on the eve of its 
transformation may be summed up in a single sentence: it was 
the absolute domination of an aristocratic class. The English 
aristocracy did not exercise its power by virtue of caste privi- 
leges, it was not divided from the rest of the population by 
any legal barriers. Its authority rested almost entirely on its 
property and its social influence. As owner of the soil, it con- 
centrated the public wealth in its own hands, personal property 
being still very far from possessing the importance which it 
has since attained. The invention of the steam-engine and the 
other mechanical discoveries of the second half of the eighteenth 
century only helped at the outset to consolidate the economical 
supremacy of the gentry, the money made in the early days 
of manufacturing industry being employed in buying up small 
estates, which were thus eventually lost in the great mass of 
large holdings. Thanks to its wealth, the landed aristocracy 
monopolized all the approaches to public power. Public func- 
tions were mostly honorary posts, carrying no salary. Besides 
this, a considerable income was necessary to qualify for them. 
A property qualification varying from a few pounds to several 
hundreds was required for the parliamentary vote, for a seat 
in Parliament, for the appointments of magistrate, coroner, and 
sheriff; for serving on a jury, for a commission in the army or 
even in the militia. Legislation, local administration, and 
armed forces were thus under the exclusive control of men of 
leisure and fortune. 

As the towns were few in number, and as a rule without 
importance, being inhabited for the most part by traders and 
artisans, the leading type of these men of leisure and fortune 


FIRST CHAP. ] THE OLD UNITY 7 





was the great rural proprietor, the squire. The Court and 
the capital did not attract him as they did the corresponding 
class in France under the ancien régime. He lived on his 
estate for the greater part of the year, and consequently had 
not the same opportunities of impoverishing himself as the 
French nobility. Being exempt by law from seizure for debt 
and protected from possible caprices of its owner by the prac- 
tice of entail, landed property was handed down intact from 
generation to generation. This stability, while it secured the 
owner uninterrupted enjoyment of the property, enhanced his 
prestige and was alone sufficient to make him the centre of 
attraction for the whole neighbourhood. He farmed out 
his estate to a more or less considerable number of tenants, 
generally without a lease. They might receive notice to quit 
at any moment, but as a matter of fact they stayed with him 
all their life and left their children in their place. A farm 
would hardly change hands once in the course of half a century. 
The ties which were formed between landlord and tenant under 
these circumstances made them a sort of family, with a feeling 
of paternal regard, kindly but at the same time autocratic, on 
the one side, and of devotion and respect on the other. 

This influence of a private nature was very frequently re- 
inforced by an extensive authority of a public kind, due to 
the squire’s participation in local administration, in the goy- 
ernment of the county entrusted to the local notables as an 
honorary function by the Crown. Police powers for keeping 
the King’s peace, the right of issuing warrants of arrest and 
of trying persons guilty of misdemeanours or even of felonies, 
preparation of criminal cases coming within the jurisdiction 
of the Assizes, inspection of prisons and of work-houses, 
administration of the rates, power to deal with appeals in 
assessment cases and to try offences against the revenue, 
inspection of roads, supervision of the public health, relief of 
the poor, church patronage, — were all exercised or controlled 
by the squires in their capacity of magistrates, within the 
sphere of self-government. To deal with the business of gen- 
eral administration, the magistrates of the locality met once 
a fortnight in petty sessions or in special sessions. Once every 
three months they assembled in greater numbers to hold the 
Quarter Sessions in the chief county town, attended by all the 


8 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





functionaries of self-government, the sheriff or the under-sheriff, 
the coroners, the high-constables of hundreds, the district 
bailiffs, the governors of prisons and the masters of work- 
houses, and the members of the grand jury and the special 
jury. It was the regular rendezvous of a ruling class. Coram 
populo it could feel a consciousness of its individuality, of its 
role in public life, and of its rank. 

The sentiments which the position of this class inspired were 
transported by it into its every-day life, and from them it took 
its ideas of politics and society and its rules of conduct in mat- 
ters small and great. The fact of sharing these ideas and fol- 
lowing these rules qualified for membership of the class and was 
the passport for admittance into it, or, what amounted to the 
same thing, constituted the gentleman. Incapable of exact 
definition, the notion of gentleman was the social charter of 
the ruling class, an unwritten charter like the constitution 
of the Realm. Gentle birth gave a good claim to the title, 
but property and the noble use made of it were indispensable 
to make the gentleman. He was supposed to possess an 
independent income derived from his estate and not from 
speculations or from a salary. The landed proprietors were 
considered the only people really interested in the welfare 
of the country, they alone had a stake in it.1 People who had 
no estate or who only possessed personal property might at 
any moment shake the dust off their feet and leave their local- 
ity or their country with its permanent interests; they were 
only adventurers. Thus the landowners, considering them- 
selves as the only gentlemen, formed a society apart, or rather 
the society. A man who was in business, even if he was a 
banker, did not belong to it. In the country people were not 
on visiting terms with him, in town he could not obtain ad- 
mittance into a club. The case was the same with persons 
belonging to liberal professions, excepting those at the summit 
of the hierarchy. Literary men and artists were not admitted 
into society as a matter of course. But if aman of the middle 


1‘“‘The landed interest alone has a right to be represented; as for the 
rabble who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation 
of them?’ said the Lord Justice Clerk in his summing-up to the jury in the 
High Court of Justice at Edinburgh, at the famous trial of Muir in 1793 (Col- 
lection of State Trials, by Howell, XXIII, 231, L. 1817). 


FIRST CHAP. ] THE OLD UNITY 9 








class rose in the social seale by his intelligence and his industry, 
or through his connections, and if he lived like a gentleman, 
there was nothing to prevent his being admitted into the circle 
of the ruling class, the reason being that there were no 
legal barriers between the various classes. And if he knocked 
at the door, it was opened but shut again immediately behind 
him, and in this way the members of the ruling class always 
kept to themselves. 

There was no jostling, however, on the threshold. The 
English middle class of those days was not afflicted with the 
vanity of the French race, and experienced none of the humilia- 
tions to which the tiers état was a martyr. It was by no means 
on a level with the gentlemen as regards enlightenment, and 
still less was it their superior in point of fortune, as was the 
cease with the tiers in France. Besides, it had none of the 
social brilliancy of the French bourgeoisie in the eighteenth 
century; its tastes were unrefined, its existence was dull, not 
to say vulgar. Hard-working and full of the vigorous instincts 
of home life, it enjoyed its modest pleasures in peace and 
quiet and kept its aspirations within due limits. To rise a 
step in the social: scale, to better one’s self, this was an ambi- 
tion which might be indulged in, and not unfrequently it was 
realized by dint of industry and perseverance. But as for as- 
suming the rank and position of the gentry, nobody wasted his 
time in bestowing a thought on such a thing. The noblemen 
and gentlemen, who seemed to occupy their exalted position by 
virtue of the natural order of things, were only regarded with 
feelings of reverence and admiration. Even up to a somewhat 
advanced period in this century, at the county ball, which 
took place in the winter in the county town and was attended 
by the local gentry and the leading middle class people, the 
gentlefolk danced among themselves in a separate part of 
the room, and the rest of the company in their own corner, 
but the latter were all the time flattered at the idea of being 
under the same roof with these superior beings and almost in 
physical contact with them, and their wives were only too 
glad to be able to gaze at the grand ladies with their splendid 
dresses and their aristocratic partners. 

Sentiments of this kind as well as the absence of enlighten- 
ment were not calculated to make the middle class acquire a 


hen, 7 
’ 


10 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





consciousness of its importance and consider itself as a social 
group antagonistic to the gentry in its interests and aspirations. 
It did not contain the element of agitation supplied in France 
by the lawyers. The lawyer class never rose to political im- 
portance in England. The work of legislation and central 
administration was performed by the members of the landed 
aristocracy in Parliament. The members of the same class 
also undertook the gratuitous discharge of all the important 
functions of local government and of the administration of 
justice. In so doing they cut the ground from under the feet 
of the lawyers in the sphere of public hfe. In the sphere of 
private life, that is to say in the practice of their profession, 
the lawyers were actually dependent on the gentry for their 
livelihood, for this was the propertied class with all the trans- 
actions and disputes to which property gave rise and which 
required the assistance of men learned in the law. Deeds of 
entail of real property, marriage settlements, leases for tenant- 
farmers and the disputes arising out of them —the attorneys 
and solicitors were ready to perform all this kind of work. In 
important cases a higher class of lawyers, the members of 
the Bar, assisted them. Thus the lawyers.in England only 
served to swell the landlord’s train and never dreamed of 
undermining his privileged position, or of fomenting animosity 
and rancour against him and his order and of constituting 
themselves the mouthpiece of these feelings, as was the case 
in France. 

Nor was parochial self-government in a position to encour- 
age tendencies of this description, for it had long ceased to be 
a reality. In boroughs which had obtained a charter of in- 
corporation municipal government was the appanage of a small 
hereditary oligarchy. In places which had not received a 
charter and in rural districts, the self-government of the parish 
was in a languishing condition since the concentration of the 
land in the hands of the gentry and the disappearance of the 
small proprietors, who are the materials of which really free 
communities are constituted. The gentry took care not to 
arouse public spirit in the lower strata of the nation; they 
were not inclined to part with their power. 

There remained the clergy, but they were the least capable 
of standing in the way of the ruling class. The Church of 


FIRST CHAP. | THE OLD UNITY 11 





England was simply a branch establishment of this class. The 
clergymen often came of the same stock, being younger sons 
or relatives or dependents of good families. Associating with 
the gentry as magistrates in local self-government, they were 
still more ready to join in the social life of the landlords, 
participating even in their pleasures and amusements. The 
clergyman was not unfrequently an ardent sportsman, a bold 
rider, a keen fisherman, a bit of an epicure, and a good hand 
at the bottle. 

The power and the social homogeneousness of the ruling 
class were thus complete. 


II 


The structure of the political organization’ presided over by 
this class contributed another element of unity. The village 
was linked to the capital, and the local to the central admin- 
istration, by an unbroken series of living ties and not by 
the fetters of a centralized bureaucracy. In the country the 
justice of the peace, who is the principal functionary of the 
system of self-government, combines the offices of adminis- 
trator and judge. His jurisdiction extends to every part of 
public life in the locality. Independent of a central bureau- 
cracy, this self-government possesses its own hierarchy, but 
each superior grade is only an amplification of the living ele- 
ments which form the lowest one, and in spite of the ascending 
scale they all remain, at each stage, at the same distance from 
the men and the things with which they have to deal. The 
ladder leads directly to the supreme power in the State and 
throughout presents the same optical impression. Three-fourths 
of the Members of Parliament have taken part in the self-gov- 
ernment of the county, or still do so. The peers of the realm, 
the leaders of the aristocracy who constitute the House of Lords 
immediately below the King, occupy the position of Lord- 
Lieutenant in the counties, command the militia and discharge 
other honorary functions belonging to local self-government. 
Finally, the government of the Church itself is drawn into this 
endless administrative network. The bishops, as heads of the 
clergy, meet the leaders of the aristocracy in the House of 
Lords and there vote with them on temporal as well as spiritual 
matters. 


12 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





Thus, from whatever point of view it is regarded, the whole 
political fabric always presents itself in all its grandeur, and 
the ruling class seems to rise from it as from a pedestal com- 
posed of a single huge block. 


The vast impression of unity conveyed by this spectacle 
gains in breadth and height when we have cast a glance at 
the internal arrangement of the political structure. The same 
leading idea emanates from each of its parts. 

The monarchy, which is at the apex, is the first to exhibit 
this unity. With the triumph of the parliamentary régime 
the King is reduced to impotence. The centre of gravity 
in the government is transferred from the Hing in Council 
to the King in Parliament, but this centre is always the King. 
The ministers, who owe their appointment to the favour of the 
Houses of Parliament, are his Privy Councillors. In local 
administration, all the unpaid functionaries representing society 
hold their power from him and not from the people. Thus 
the monarchy always appears as the one point in which all the 
rays of the life of the State are focussed. And the more the 
royal power dwindles in reality, without losing a single prerog- 
ative as a matter of right, the more it assumes an impersonal 
character, the more strikingly does it symbolize the moral 
conception of the supreme power which in its unity per- 
vades all the manifestations of public life without dominating 
them, from which all authority proceeds but only to converge 
on the one object which is the raison d’étre of a political 
society. 

The real power is in the hands of Parliament, with the 
always implied sanction of the Crown. As direct representa- 
tive of the nation, it exercises every attribute of sovereignty 
on its behalf. Legislative and executive functions meet and 
are blended in it. The body which has received the name of 
the Cabinet is only a committee of the two Houses. The 
power of making laws, regulations and orders, is not entrusted 
to a separate authority in each case. Every high act of govern- 
ment proceeds from the Lords and Commons united to the 
Crown, from the King in Parliament, that is to say, from 
society and the State fused into a single whole. 

Local administration with its self-government is only a fresh 


FIRST CHAP. | THE OLD UNITY 13 





manifestation of this whole. Besides the local business trans- 
acted nowadays by elective assemblies such as municipalities, 
district councils, etc., the self-government of the county in- 
cludes judicial and administrative powers, in other words, 
attributes of political sovereignty. The great landowners who 
combine all these varied functions do not derive them from 
any hereditary right nor from any mandate conferred on 
them by this or that group of the population under their 
jurisdiction. They are chosen from the ranks of the society 
whose habits, needs, and aspirations they more or less faith- 
fully reflect. But they are appointed by the Crown which 
represents the State. Holding their powers from this source, 
they simply exercise as delegates the authority entrusted to 
them by the chief of the State, the supreme depositary of its 
sovereignty. 

The mark of the one and indivisible State is thus stamped 
on every organ of public life, however great its distance from 
the centre; the State covers the whole ground occupied by 
the political fabric, and to complete the unity it absorbs the 
spiritual province by making religion a State religion. It 
adopts its dogmas and professes them as not only the truth 
but the whole truth; it makes adhesion to them the criterion 
of a sound judgment and an upright heart, and rejects all who 
do not admit them. Public posts, elective offices, whether in 
Parliament or in local assemblies, can only be filled by meim- 
bers of the Established Church. The Universities are open 
only to those who formally embrace the State religion. Even 
secondary education is practically denied to the children of 
Catholics and Dissenters, for all the grammar schools are in the 
hands of the Anglican clergy. Thus identifying itself with 
the Church, the State sets the crowning seal of moral unity 
on political society. . 

it 

What was the position of the individual in this State and 
society ? The experience we have just gained conveys the 
idea that it was not an exalted one. As a matter of fact, the 
whole public life of the England of old days, from one end 
to the other, marks the subordination of the individual to 
society. A member of the House of Commons, “elected to 


14 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [Frrst part 





serve in Parliament,” cannot resign before the legal expiration 
of his mandate; even ill health is not accepted as an excuse, 
and he is obliged to have recourse to an expedient in order to 
retire into private life —to apply for the post of steward and 
bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.' In the county the sheriff, 
who is the acting representative of public authority, cannot 
decline to serve. In the administration of the parish offices 
are conferred by election, but acceptance of them is obligatory 
on the persons elected. The other parishioners are also often 
reminded that they are only anonymous items of a whole. The 
whole attitude of the revenue department towards the taxpayer 
makes him feel this. It ignores the individual and never 
addresses him. Taxation is not personal but real. The rev- 
enue authorities never consider the relations of properties with 
persons; the rates are demanded not from the owner but from 
the occupier, from whoever happens to be in possession. The 

-moral personality of the rate-payer is treated with just as little 
consideration; payment of the rates for the Established Church 
is demanded from the Dissenters on the same grounds as from 
the members of the Anglican Church. The religious scruples 
of this or that individual are of no consequence, he has prop- 
erty in the parish, and that is a sufficient reason for making 
him pay the Church rates as well as the other rates assessed 
on the parish. 

It is not only in the discharge of obligations that the indi- 
vidual suffers in this way for the benefit of the community. 
The social and political constitution bears traces of the same 
spirit in regard to the exercise of rights. First of all in the 
family. Among the gentry, as soon as a man attains his ma- 
jority and comes into his property, he renounces his right in 
favour of his eldest son by a deed of substitution. This child 
is perhaps not yet born, but that is of no consequence; it is 
not his personality which is in question, but the new generation 


1 Several centuries ago the Chiltern Hundreds, a district in Buckingham- 
shire, were infested with brigands, and an ofticer was appointed to provide for 
the security of the inhabitants of the locality. The brigandage was soon put 
down, but the office remained, and as it was a post of ‘‘ honour and profit 
under the Crown,’’ the member of Parliament who accepted it lost his seat 
eo ipso. Since then members of the House who wish to retire obtain the 
stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, and resign it the same evening, to 
make way for another member. 


FIRST CHAP. ] THE OLD UNITY 15 





of which he will become the representative. He, in his turn, 
will waive his rights in the same way, with the same object of 
keeping the property intact and thereby preserving in future 
ages the prestige of the family, of which he is only a fraction 
in the march of time. 

When he exercises his rights of citizenship, it is also not on 
his own account. He belongs to a free country governed by a 
representative assembly, but it is not he who is primarily rep- 
resented. The assembly is not the “Chamber of Deputies” 
but the “ House of Commons,” of the counties and boroughs, 
living members of the State. As they alone possess political 
individuality, they are represented without reference to popu- 
lation, just as human bodies, be their stature great or small, 
perform the same vital functions. And it is only as a part of 
the electoral entity that the individual obtains representation 
in Parliament. No doubt the act of election can only be ac- 
complished by individuals who inhabit the county or borough, 
but when it is on the point of taking place they are detached 
from their own conscience by being made to record an open 
vote, under the watchful supervision of their neighbours, and, 
so to speak, as their representative and agent. 

Even the sphere of private life does not escape the tendency 
to subordinate the individual. This is difficult to reconcile 
with accepted notions, for it is in this sphere above all that 
the Englishman is supposed to enjoy complete freedom. He 
possesses, as Blackstone says in the jargon of the eighteenth 
century, “natural liberties.” “These were formerly the rights 
of all mankind; but in most other countries of the world, being 
more or less debased or destroyed, they at present may be said 
to remain, in a peculiar and emphatic manner, the rights of the 
people of England. And they may be reduced to three princi- 
pal or primary articles: the right of personal security, the 
right of personal liberty, and the right of private property.” 
Chatham emphasizes the same point in magnificent language: 
“The storm and rain may beat into the cottage of the poor man, 
but the King cannot enter it.” Beyond a doubt, these “natu- 
ral liberties ” of the individual existed and were respected so 
long as they did not directly or indirectly interfere with the 
community. As soon as this conflict of interests appears, 
human individuality is crushed, and occasionally with refine- 


16 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirst part 





ments of cruelty. Under the Settlement Act! the inhabitant 
of a parish cannot leave it for the term of his whole life; he 
remains in it like a bondsman attached to the soil, because if he 
were free to go where he liked he might move into another lo 
cality, where, if he found no means of livelihood, he would have 
to be maintained by the parish. Poor people coming into an- 
other parish conceal themselves like criminals hunted by the 
police. When discovered, they are sent back at once into their 
parish, even if they are suffering from a dangerous illness 
which unfits them for the journey. A poor man who will not 
work is made to do so by force, for here again the parish would 
be obliged to keep him from starvation. He is confined in a 
work-house for the whole of his life, on the mere order of an 
overseer of the poor. His children are taken from him and 
apprenticed in another parish, perhaps at the other end of the 
country, where they will remain separated from him as if by 
the grave. The persons with whom these apprentices are 
placed are obliged to take them and keep them. If a work- 
man left the country, there would be no fear of his coming on 
any parish, but he would inflict injury on the larger community 
to which he belongs, on his country, by taking his professional 
skill abroad with him; consequently the law forbids artisans 
to leave the Kingdom. Workmen are not allowed the right of 
combination. Freedom of contract is not complete; wages are 
fixed by the authorities. 

Being treated with such scant consideration by the com- 
munity in the lawful course of his existence, the individual 
forfeits all claim to the respect due to him as a human being 
directly he comes into conflict with the law. Under the bank- 
ruptcy law the insolvent debtor is thrown into prison on the 
simple application of the creditor. The same treatment is 
meted out to a man who is accused by a woman with child of 
being the cause of her pregnancy.” The persons called vaga- 
bonds and beggars by the law — and their number is a large 
one*— are publicly whipped until, as the old statutes say, 


1 Act of 1662, 14 Chas, II, c. 12; its severity is to a certain extent mitigated 
by the Act of 1795, 35 Geo. III, c. 101, and of 1809, 49 Geo. III, c. 124. 

2 Bastardy Acts of 1733 (6 Geo. II, c. 31) and of 1809 (49 Geo. III, 
e. 68). 

8 The Vagrant Act of 1744 (17 Geo. H, c. 5). 


FIRST CHAP. | THE OLD UNITY . 17 





“their body becomes bloody.”* If after this they do not go 
back to their parish they are whipped in every place consecu- 
tively until they are brought home.? A theft of five shillings 
is punished with death, and protracted efforts of philanthro- 
pists were required to raise the price of human life to forty 
shillings and afterwards to five pounds. The law becomes less 
rigorous when the vindication of human personality is con- 
cerned; the severest penalties of the code apply to offences 
against property and not to those against the person. 

So much for the legal sphere. In the domain of social life 
the importance of the individual is relatively still further 
diminished. Here a man can never “be himself.” Society 
forces on him a crowd of obligations from which he cannot 
escape without prejudicing his claim to the title of gentleman. 
Invisible and pervading every corner of life, the notion of 
gentleman brings every member of society under the yoke of 
a general and uniform law, and subjects him to a pitiless disci- 
pline, leaving no field for his personal preferences, from his 
religious opinions down to his dress. It is ungentlemanlike 
to be a Dissenter, just as it is ungentlemanlike to wear a white 
hat, as those Radical fellows are so fond of doing. 

The cult of the individual, the apotheosis of man in the 
abstract, were consequently very far from ever having existed 
in England. 


IV 


_ But if in the political society of England the individual was 
only an atom in the general mass, he was not always an atom 
isolated in space. Apart from the representative institutions, 
in every-day life many an Englishman was led by local self- 
government to work for a common object possessing a general 
interest. By this continual co-operation in the sphere of the 
immediate needs of the population men learned to know each 
other, to come to an understanding and to pursue in concert 
an aim which rose above their own personal concerns. The 


1“ Till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping’’ (22 Hen. VIII, 
c, 12, an, 1530-31). : 

2“ Be openly whipped until his or her body be bloody”... . ‘‘in every 
place to be whipped till such person be repaired to the place limited ’’ (39 Eliz. 
- ¢. 4, an. 1597-98). 

VOL. 1— C 


18 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





independent fortune and the social rank of the magistrates 
who took part in the self-government of the county made their 
public labours more an affair of honour and social duty. In 
discharging their functions they very often displayed class 
prejudice and a domineering spirit; still they gave their time 
and their money to the service of the public. In doing so they 
set a daily example which showed that private persons had 
duties towards the community, and that it was not right for 
the individual to hold aloof from public life. Service on the 
grand jury and on special juries very often brought together 
people of lower social position and made them feel a common 
bond of union. Moreover the system of taxation of real prop- 
erty in the counties kept the members of the parish in close 
contact, the total required being fixed in a lump sum for each 
parish and then apportioned amongst each other by the parish- 
ioners themselves. 

In this way a social current was formed which, starting from 
the heights of political society, penetrated low enough to reach 
the level ground occupied by the mass of the population and 
parching, so to speak, under a restricted parliamentary fran- 
chise, an oligarchical municipal administration, and an anemic 
system of parochial self-government. The power and the range 
of this social force have no doubt been exaggerated by the 
retrospective enthusiasm of writers who have sung the praises 
of the England of old days, such as Gneist and others, who 
readily ascribed to it the merit of having completed the organic 
unity of English society and of having once and for all secured 
the co-ordination of its component parts. It was impossible 
to complete the organic unity in question, because it never 
existed. We have just seen, merely from the lot of the 
individual in this society, that he was too much repressed 
to be really an organic part of it, and that the moral entity 
of the community was too often identified with a single 
class, to which the rest of the nation was only adjusted, in 
many cases even simply by a turn of the screw. But nar- 
row as was the social current in the England of old times, 
it was not dammed up by barriers of privilege like those 
which divided the nation into small isolated groups in France, 
and it could flow unchecked through the whole English com- 
munity, while gradually shrinking in volume. In this way it 


FIRST CHAP. | THE OLD UNITY 19 





concealed the lines of cleavage in political society, and readily 
conveyed the impression of a complete organic unity. This 
social current was sometimes a perception of the common wel- 
fare and a reasoned determination to advance it, not without 
an admixture of selfishness; at others a vague and spon- 
taneous idea of the duties prescribed by the general interest ; 
very frequently the necessity or social propriety of not sepa- 
rating from the leading men; still more often a sort of 
traditional, almost automatic, adhesion to the chiefs whom 
the public was always accustomed to see in the front rank; but 
whatever its aspect, the current, within its narrow bed, con- 
tinually carried the members of the community along with 
it, and made them unite in the psychological order just indi- 
cated. This process, unceasing in its nature like the forma- 
tion of solid strata under the waves of the sea, ensured the 
cohesion of the body politic and brought its dominant organs 
into relief. Their position as leaders of society made them 
leaders of men in the State. Their political authority was 
simply another expression for their social power, which rested 
on the attachment of man to man. Since the primitive period 
of the Middle Ages, which produced the lord and his vassal, 
the relations of life had become far more complicated, but 
they had not become differentiated in the same proportion, 
partly in consequence of the large infusion of social feeling 
which pervaded the English community. Powers had in- 
creased in number, but the necessity of a corresponding divi- 
sion of functions made itself but slowly felt. And even close 
upon the period of reforms not only was society an avenue to 
politics, but people combined political power and social func- 
tions even of the purely fashionable kind. Thus the great 
Lord Chesterfield was leader of fashion and political leader 
at the same time.’ Political and social life met and blended 
once more in the leadership; society was completely reflected 
in its leaders. 
Vv 


Under these circumstances the political system worked with 
extreme simplicity. For parliamentary elections the most 
1 Wellington, when discussing, in 1837, the chances of the Tory party, drew 


attention to the disadvantage at which it was placed owing to its leaders: 
“Peel has no manners and I have no small talk.”’ 


20 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirst part 





influential squires in the county met in an informal manner 
and selected a candidate. All the members of their class 
accepted him from motives of confidence or propriety. The 
other electors, who were few in number owing to the high 
qualification, and accustomed all their life to gravitate in the 
orbit of the great landlords, could only follow their habitual 
tendency. The urban constituencies also were subject to the 
influence of the landed aristocracy. Many boroughs were 
under the direct patronage of the great proprietors in their 
capacity of owners of the soil on which the urban agglomera- 
tions had arisen. They obtained control of other boroughs by 
making their tenants become members at their expense of the 
municipal corporations which possessed a monopoly of the 
franchise. In case of need the electors in the towns could be 
secured by bribery; the votes of freemen were openly bought, 
not to mention the pocket or rotten boroughs, by which a seat 
in the House could be purchased right out. In one way or 
another the members nearly all belonged to the aristocratic 
class, being sons of lords or their near relatives, or other per- 
sons on whom the magnates who procured them admittance 
into Parliament could depend. According to a table prepared 
about 1815, the House of Commons contained 471 members 
who owed their seats to the good-will and pleasure of 144 
peers and 123 commoners, 16 Government nominees, and only 
171 members elected by popular suffrages.’ 

Having gained a seat in Parliament through the same influ- 
ences, and belonging nearly all to the same social sphere, they 
brought with them the same habits of mind and feelings, and 
were perfectly ready to obey the instinct which impels men to 
form a group and accept the control of a chief. Social esprit 
de corps compelled each member to follow his set, his party. 
To desert it, even for a moment, was an act of treachery, 
or, What was perhaps still worse, ungentlemanly. And why 
should he take a line of his own? The voice of his con- 
science might prompt such a course, but did not the other 
and louder voice of his surroundings and his party bid him 
follow his leaders? Was a fraction to set itself above the 


1T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and 
Ireland, Lond. 1816, Vol, VI, Appendix: Correct tables of parliamentary 
patronage. 


FIRST CHAP. | THE OLD UNITY 21 





whole? “You go with your family, sir, like a gentleman; 
you are not to consider your opinions like a philosopher 
or a political adventurer,” says Lord Monmouth to his grand- 
son in one of Disraeli’s novels... Independent members were 
consequently very rare. Social discipline enforced disei- 
pline in Parliament. The House was “the best gentlemen’s 
club,’ and if any one of its members took it into his head to 
disturb the general harmony, he was disposed of in the same 
way as a bore in a drawing-room. To accuse a member of this 
was equivalent to telling him that he was not a gentleman. 
Pitt, when Prime Minister, in 1798, was obliged to fight a duel 
with Tierney because he had reproached him with obstructive 
conduct. The feeling of members towards their leaders was 
not only the professional devotion of a soldier to his chief, but 
even more the respect and absolute confidence inspired by men 
of honour. Confidence in their wisdom and in their experience 
of affairs occupied the second place. These sentiments consti- 
tuted the atmosphere of the House for years after 1832. On 
one occasion during the discussion of the Reform Bill Croker 
moved an amendment which he supported in an able and con- 
clusive speech. Lord Althorp rose and simply said that he had 
made calculations and arrived at results which told against the 
amendment, that unfortunately he had mislaid the papers, but 
that if the House would leave it to him they would reject the 
amendment. And the House voted against the amendment, for 
the reasons which Lord Althorp had forgotten but which had 
seemed to him conclusive at the time.” A Minister, as Robert 
Lowe stated in 1867, defeated a motion to appoint a parliament- 
ary committee by simply saying: “I cannot grant such a com- 
mittee.”? “When I first entered Parliament,” once remarked 
Sidney Herbert, who was a member of Peel’s and Palmerston’s 
Cabinets, “the House of Commons was divided into two camps. 
A leader guarded both; a leader whom no man questioned, and 
whom every man on his side followed. His party acquiesced 
in everything he thought best; and five minutes after his deci- 
sion was announced to them, they were heart and soul engaged 


1 Coningsby, or The New Generation, Bk. VIII, ch. 3. 

2 Memoir of J. C. Viscount Althorp, by Sir Denis Le Marchant, Lond. 1876, 
p. 400. 

3 Speeches and Letters on Reform, Lond. 1867, p. 91. 


22 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





in it, clamorous that it was the only one that could be arrived 
at.” 1 

The division into political parties in no way impaired the 
homogeneousness of the whole body, it only facilitated the for- 
mation of the two groups and preserved cohesion in the ranks. 
Subdivisions as they were of the same society, separated by 
rivalries and grudges and to a slight extent by principles, Whigs 
and Tories in Parliament were animated by the same spirit and 
the same passions. It was a struggle of Capulets and Monta- 
gues. Social discipline made each party into a living chain 
which nothing could break: afflux of ideas, pressure of public 
opinion, revolts on the part of individuals, were not strong 
enough for the purpose. A very considerable number of 
members of the House were anything but “philosophers.” 
Younger sons of peers, and as a rule young men, principally 
attracted by the pleasures and amusements of society and the 
clubs, country gentlemen who accepted a seat because it had 
become the fashion to spend a few months each year in London, 
they took but a slender interest in the debates, and seldom 
came to the House, except on the great field-days when every 
member of the party was whipped up to make a majority, and 
even then they only arrived at the last moment, just in time 
to learn how they should vote. Members of a more serious 
turn of mind were not likely to be much troubled with ideas. 
The questions in dispute were few in number and not of 
recent date; in those days people were slow in raising prob- 
lems and a long time in solving them.? A man could make up 
a programme to last all his life at the outset of his political 
career. It was seldom that he was taken unawares by an 
unforeseen question which would oblige him to adopt a fresh 
attitude on the spur of the moment. 

The pressure of public opinion, apart from exceptional cases, 
was still less felt by the politician. There hardly existed any 
opinion outside parliamentary circles and the drawing-rooms 


1 The Times of Oct. 29, 1858. Speech at the Warminster Atheneum. 

2 Lord John Russell once remarked in the House of Commons that Lord 
Chatham, the most powerful Minister of the eighteenth century, had not passed 
a single legislative measure. During the twenty years which followed the 
Reform Bill many more important laws were enacted than during the hun- 
dred and twenty preceding years (quoted by Bagehot, Essays on Reform, 
Lond. 1883, p. 169). 


FIRST CHAP. | THE OLD UNITY 23 





connected with them. Outdoor opinion had no means of ex- 
pressing itself; the platform and public meetings scarcely 
existed; the means of communication were difficult; the 
Press, which was crushed by heavy duties, had a very limited 
circulation. The price of a copy of a newspaper rose as high 
as seven pence (in 1815 after the new stamp duties). At the 
beginning of the century (1801), the yearly sale of newspapers 
was less than a copy and a half per head of the popula- 
tion, and with a few variations it remained at this figure up 
to 1835.1. The general public paid little heed to politics. It 
was the pet hobby of a select group, the sport of an aristocracy. 
And it was only in this latter capacity that it interested the 
English masses, who were full of a deferential admiration for 
all the doings of their nobility. There were a few eccentric 
individuals who followed and discussed the policy of the Gov- 
ernment, but they were looked on as armchair strategists, who 
spend their time in criticising the commanders-in-chief. The 
knowledge of what went on in Parliament was slight and 
inaccurate; the reports of the proceedings were of the most 
summary description; the division-lists were never published, 
except on great_o i when private copies of them were 
circulated. It was consequently difficult for the constituents 
fo follow the conduct of their members, even if they wished to 
do so. The latter, for their part, were by no means anxious to 
be under control, and opposed the publication_of their votes in 
the House, being of opinion that secrecy was essential to their 
independence. 

The further removed they were from the control of public 
opinion, the more close became the ties which bound them to 
their party and its leaders. Independent tendencies in a pri- 
vate member died out of themselves. The only alternative 
was to go over to the other side. In what quarter could he 
have found even moral support when the door of public opin- 
ion was closed? Consequently there was no field for the 
formation of a third party holding the balance between the 








1In the United States the circulation of the Press rose during the same 
period from 23 copies per head to 5 or 53. It is true that in addition to the 
stamped newspapers, the statistics of which are the basis of these calcu- 
lations, many contraband journals were circulated in England at certain 
periods. 


, 


24 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [FIRST PART 





two great parties, and they always remained compact and in 
perfect discipline. A Cabinet supported by the majority was 
sure of the immediate future, the policy of the Government 


was marked by continuity, and the State enjoyed the advantage 
of stability. 


SECOND CHAPTER 
BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 
| 


Sotrp and coherent as the political and social fabric of 
England was, it was too narrow to contain the national life. 
Everything in it was cramped: the private individual, begin- 
ning his career with a fairly sound but very incomplete educa- 
tion ; society, drawn from a limited circle, its every-day life 
ruled by conventions and prejudices, its mental culture derived 
from a literature modelled on the formal lines of classic art, 
its spiritual sustenance supplied by a religion free from mysti- 
cism but also devoid of enthusiasm, and reduced by the homi- 
lies of the pulpit to arguments in which the existence of God 
was demonstrated by his utility ; the Church a branch of the 
State; the State reposing solely on a single class supposed to 
be the only one with a stake in the country. The great mass 
of the nation received hardly a ray of ight or warmth from 
this society of gentlemen, from this aristocratic Church, from 
this State religion embodied in paragraphs, from this exclu- 
sive political system. True, the individual was not molested 
as in continental countries; the restrictions on freedom of 
labour were falling into disuse; the fundamental rights of the 
citizen were under the protection of the tribunals; the admin- 
istration, invested with a judicial character in the person of 
the magistrates and controlled by settled laws, was not exposed 
to the arbitrary proceedings of a bureaucracy and was free 
from the shifting influences of parliamentary parties; the mate- 
rial condition of the people was not unbearably wretched before 
the industrial revolution; the feelings of the ruling class to- 
wards the lower classes were characterized by anything but ill- 
will. But this ruling class did nothing to lift the masses out 
of the slough of ignorance in which they were sunk, to enlarge 
their mental horizon, to make them feel that they, too, had a 

25 


26 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





stake in the country; it took no step to enroll the masses in 
the political and social system of England, to admit them to 
a sphere of civic action in which the individual might find 
scope for his energies and rise to higher things. The Church 
treated them with equal indifference both in the matter of 
general instruction and religious edification. The represent- 
atives of the Established Church, who were ecclesiastical 
officials rather than servants of God, seldom penetrated to 
the hearts of the people, and the people went their own way, 
combining with their torpid existence a state of complete irre- 
ligion. ‘They live precisely like brutes to gratify the appe- 
tites of their uncultivated bodies, and then die, to go, they 
have never thought, cared, or wondered whither.” 

Thus the larger nation, still more than the small nation com- 
posed of the ruling class, presented the aspect of a confused 
and colourless mass, in which the individual was hardly percep- 
tible and the soul had no consciousness of its existence. But 
the human being created in the image of God was still there, 
with all its needs and instincts, not dead but only sleeping, and 
when, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, John 
Wesley’s appeal to the human soul rang through the Anglo- 
Saxon world, a thrill passed over the masses. “ Overwhelmed 
with misery, laden with sin, doomed to perdition, you can 
obtain your deliverance at once by descending into your 
soul, to perceive the living God by faith. As soon as you 
feel this faith you are purified.” “But what is faith? It 
is not an assent to any opinion or number of opinions. A 
man may assent to three or three-and-twenty creeds, he may 
assent to all the Old and New Testament, and yet have no 
Christian faith at all.... It is the internal evidence of 
Christianity, a perpetual revelation directly from God into the 
believing soul.” If all do not possess it, that is because it is a 
free gift of God. But there is no need of merit or virtue to 
obtain it from Him. “ His pardoning mercy supposes nothing 
in us but a sense. of mere sin and misery.” ... “This 
justifying faith implies not only the personal revelation, the 
inward evidence of Christianity, but likewise a sure and firm 
confidence in the individual believer that Christ died for his 
sins, loved him and gave His life for him.”' But who or what 


1R. Southey, Life of Wesley and the Rise and Progress of Methodism, 2d 
ed. Lond. 1820, I, 175 seq. 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 27 





will show that the individual has attained to faith, that he has 
risen above the herd of sinners, that he has become “ per- 
fect”? He will feel it himself, he is himself judge of his 
own soul. The Protestant dogma of justification by faith, 
which had become obsolete in England, is thus revived, and, 
pushed to its extreme conclusions, is launched into general 
circulation. Freed from all trammels, given up to his im- 
pulses, the Wesleyan becomes intoxicated with spiritual pride 
and not unfrequently loses his moral equilibrium. A shock 
is felt in society and in family life; the new doctrine leads to 
antinomianism, to the belief that the moral law as such is not 
binding on the Christian.‘ Soon, however, the individual be- 
comes once more a prisoner. Puritanism, revived by Wesley, 
disparages all the pleasures of life which give expansion to 
human personality. Continually directing the thoughts towards 
the examination of the soul, Wesleyanism isolates man from 
the external world, and closes the avenues to social and politi- 
cal life. At the same time Wesley, who has appealed to the 
individual conscience to draw men from their evil mode of 
life, to make things doubly sure bids his followers walk to- 
gether in the new faith, for mutual aid and supervision and 
in order not to swerve from the path. Weekly meetings, 
“classes,” are instituted, to which each member comes to con- 
fess his thoughts and actions. He lays bare the state of his 
soul, and there is not a corner left in which he can be alone 
with himself. He is surrounded day and night by a system 
of mutual espionage, and can only elude the vigilance of his 
co-religionists by assuming a conventional mask and becoming 
the slave of an abject hypocrisy. 

But the appeal to the individual conscience, which Wesley 
was the first to put forth, had time to spread and find an echo. 
People belonging to the middle and upper classes were also 
touched with emotion, and, without separating from the Es- 
tablished Church, took upon themselves to bring back to it in 
triumph the creed of the Gospel, the religion of the heart. To 
the frigid and well-bred morality of the Church, the Evangel- 


1 See the dialogue, quoted by Lecky (History of the Eighteenth Century, II, 
p. 596), between Wesley and the antinomianist preacher of Birmingham, who 
assures him that man, being no longer under the laws, is the heir to all things, 
and can take whatever goods and lie with whatever woman he pleases. 


28 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirst part 





icals, as they were called, opposed personal piety, the individ- 
ual responsibility of each soul to its Creator. Passing from 
feeling to practice, they inaugurated a_great philanthropical_ 

ovement in the England of the second half of the eighteenth 
centiy Pomanne se ianner of pious institutions, establishing 
missionary and Bible societies, for the greater glory of Christ, 
the Evangelicals were also full of compassion for the misery 
in the social system. The ignorance in which the masses were 
plunged, the barbarous provisions of the penal code, the piti- 
able state of the prisons, in which men rotted away alive, and 
above all, man enslaved by his fellows touched their hearts. 
They set on foot a vast public agitation. For this purpose 
they systematized and almost invented the methods of propa- 
ganda employed to influence opinion in modern times— 
pamphlets, public meetings, platform speeches, monster peti- 
tions to Parliament. At all times and in all places they ap- 
pealed from the miserable reality to the human conscience. 
In the criminal they pointed out the man, and in the negro 
the brother. A new character—the fellow-creature, the 
“man” — was ushered from the platform into the social and 
political world of aristocratic England, and was destined to 
remain there. “Man born free and in chains,” as J. J. Rous- 
seau puts it, begins to take hold of the English imagination 
in the person of the negro. Societies for the suppression 
of the slave-trade and for preaching the Gospel to the negroes 
spring up on all sides. More than one humble family — old 
and young together— experience a delightful emotion in 
contributing the contents of their money-box. Three hun- 
dred thousand persons pledge themselves to abstain from the 
use of sugar, to avoid tasting a product due to slave labour. 
The Evangelicals make their way into Parliament, and their 
voice rises louder and louder in the halls of Westminster to 
vindicate the claims of outraged humanity. Although few in 
number, they possess great influence in the House. Belonging 
nominally to the Tory party, they separate from it whenever 
their conscience does not permit them to vote with it, for 
they fear the living God. ‘This novel spectacle of the individ- 
ual conscience taking its own course in politics commands 
respect; they are not styled “ philosophers” or “adventurers,” 
but “the party of saints.” 





SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 29 





II 


Simultaneously with the spread of the philanthropic move- 
ment another stream from a different quarter flows into it and 
swells its volume. Religious emotion is reinforced by the 
emotion of thought. Good society has grown weary of con- 
ventionalism and longs to experience genuine sensations. 
And as it has sufficient time and money to indulge in the lux- 
ury of fine sentiments, its principal object is to enjoy emotion. 
The man of feeling makes his appearance and is welcomed 
on all sides. “The literature of the day may be called the 
library of the man of feeling.”’ The heroes of the fashion- 
able novels of Richardson, Sterne, and Mackenzie have a soul, 
they shed tears at everything and nothing, “they give way to 
emotion five or six times a day, and fall into consumption 
through excess of sensibility.”? Then comes J. J. Rousseau 
with his fervid and emotional pzans to nature. Society is 
touched and begins to sigh for “the return to nature.” It 
goes into ecstasies over beautiful scenery, which can now be 
easily admired, the recent introduction of post-chaises having 
facilitated travelling. People take pleasure in the thought 
that they have sentiment and a heart, and let their imagina- 
tion range beyond their native country in order to find subjects 
of emotion. Public sensibility goes out to savages, to the 
heathen, to the ill-treated Caribees in the island of St. Law- 
rence; the public conscience arraigns Warren Hastings for his 
oppression of the rajahs of India. Subscriptions are collected 
in aid of the Corsicans, who are defending their independence 
against the French, assistance is sent to the Poles, who are 
trying to protect the last shreds of their political existence 
from rapacious neighbours. For they too are fellow-creatures, 
just like the negro, the protégé of the middle classes, the con- 
crete object by means of which the latter have obtained a 
clearer grasp of the conception of “man,” a conception of too 
abstract a nature, in its metaphysical nudity, for the English 
mind. 

For the same reason, perhaps, the political and social con- 
clusions which ideologists in France developed from this 


1 Taine, Histoire de la lit. angl. IV, 227. 2 Ibid. 


30 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





conception do not strike the English at the first blush; but 
people arrive at them in England just as in France, only by 
another route, or rather by a lateral path which soon leads 
into the main road followed by ideology. 


III 
ee ee into his own soul the religious revival 


and_sentimentalism bring-bim faca to face with the problem 
of his duty. He has not far to seek. ristian piety and 
the dictates of the heart at once prescribe the path to be fol- 
lowed —that of “morality.” But does this “morality” ex- 
haust all the duties of man? No, replies the most popular 
moralist of the century, Paley : “The part a member of the 
commonwealth shall take in political contentions, the vote he 
shall give, the counsels he shall approve, the support he shall 
altord, or the opposition he shall make, to an any system of pub- 
1¢ measures, —is as much a question of personal duty, as 
much concerns the conscience of the indiyidual who deliber- 
atés, as the determination of any doubt which relates to the 
conduct of private _life.’”’? The subject ‘Of politics is conse- 
quently identical with that of morality; in_both cases it is. 
man interrogating his conscience. Nor is their object differ- 
ent; it merely expands in proportion to the new limits pre- 
scribed. On the one side, in the restricted sphere of morality, 
the peace of the individual soul is concerned; on the other, 
eee the province of a morality conceived on a larger scale, 
happiness of man living in society is at stake. “ All 
aes says Priestley, “live in society for their mutual 
advantage, so that the good and happiness of the members, 
that is, the majority of the members of any state, is the great 
standard by which everything relating to that state must 
finally be determined.”? And who is the judge of the good 
of the members? But this is equivalent to asking who knows 
his own interest best. The answer is obvious, — the members 
themselves, each member. It was the inevitable conclusion. 
s, it was destined to alter the 


Aided_by the force of events, it was 
political and social aspect of England. Half a century elapsed 


1W. Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, Preface. 
2 Essay on the First Principles of Government, 1768, p. 17. 
























































SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 31 





before the transition from theory to practice took place. 
During this interval English thinkers were incessantly en- 
gaged in defining and developing the terms of Priestley’s 
proposition and in drawing conclusions from it both in the 
domain of speculation and practice. 

Several other factors contributed to the same result. First 
of all, the new science of political economy acting as the 
spokesman of new interests. Towards the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century England was stirred by an extraordinary devel- 
opment of commerce and industry. It had been preceded, at a 
much earlier date, by a number of isolated and independent 
efforts, which marked out the line of the future individualist 
régime in the economical life of the nation, and which suc- 
ceeded by their own strength, so long as they were not tram- 
melled by State regulation. The mercantile genius of the 
nation, which had shed such a lustre on the two hemispheres 
in the reign of Elizabeth, now awoke with fresh vigour. The 
reserve of moral force accumulated for centuries in the Anglo- 
Saxon race supplied it with tenacity of will, indefatigable 
energy, and bold initiative. Give us elbow-room and the world 
will be ours! This idea, which was fermenting in the caldron 
of national energies, took definite shape under the pen of Adam 
Smith. Without actually stating the French formula of “ lais- 
sez faire laissez passer,’ Adam Smith propagated it in all 
his writings. Taking his stand on facts, he pleaded for free- 
dom of trade and commerce, pointed out all the mischief 
caused by State interference with economic activity, and ex- 
posed all the narrowness of Colbert’s system of tutelage, “so 
opposed to the generous policy enjoined by equality, justice, 
and liberty of letting every man manage his own business as 
he thinks proper.” He attacked the customs of entail and 
primogeniture and everything which weakened or fettered 
the individual in his natural epuciaey towards well-being. 
Society, he argued, could _ only gain by the economic liberty 
of the individual, for their interests are identical, and free 





trade could d not fail to become a source of wealth. for each 
and ¢ d all. Sees 

‘These ideas, which were so nearly akin to the general con- 
ception of natural liberty, a_ kinship which Adam Smith was 
far from _disavowing, produced a still _greater ¢ effect by_ their 











82 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





eminently practical English character; the in 
the language of interests and appealed to interests. They 
penetrated into the public mind, and in time grew into a cur- 
rent of opinion which carried “the individual” forward with 
constantly increasing force. 

In grander and loftier accents the genius of France pleaded 
the same cause of the oppressed individual before the bar of 
assembled humanity, appealing to natural right, to reason, and 
to justice. 

The founding of the American Republic and the French 
Revolution converted the idea into a reality. The Declaration 
of the Rights of Man proclaimed it to the world. The good 
tidings were received with enthusiasm in more than one quarter 
in England. Thomas Paine expounded them in “The Rights 
of Man,’ which obtained an enormous circulation and remained 
for many years the text-book of the élite of the working classes. 
The rights of men all equal by nature, the State owing its ex- 
istence to their free consent, the superiority of a democratic 
republic, the moral deformity of kings and priests, who are the 
source of all the misfortunes of mankind —all these doctrines 
were stated in vehement language which appealed rather to 
the passions than to the intelligence. 

In William Godwin deductive rationalism found a much 
more powerful advocate. His book on “ Political Justice” 
develops it with a pitiless logic which does not shrink from 
the most extreme conclusions, and reaches a point which 
Rousseau himself did not arrive at. Man, as conceived by 
Godwin, a being of pure reason, is compelled by his very 
nature to follow the eternal decrees of justice; all constraint 
is therefore useless; laws and government are only an encroach- 
ment on the liberty of the individual, and on these grounds 
Godwin declines to recognize the validity of the contrat social. 
In spite of its exaggerations Godwin’s book took hold of the_ 
public mind by its intense feeling of individualism, by its 
hatred_of: every obstacle to the expansion of human person- 
ality, by its faith in man and in reason. The excesses of the 
French Revolution supplied a refutation of this optimism and 
stirred up a violent reaction against “ French ideas ” in Eng- 
lish society, developed to the point of paroxysm by the long 
implacable war waged by Pitt against France. But “ French 















































SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 33 





ideas,” i.e. ideas of liberty, found a resting-place in the very 
heart of England; they penetrated thither under cover of the 
utilitarian philosophy, so well-suited to the positive English 
mind as regards its principle but so highly revolutionary in its 
application. It is in vain that its representatives from Paley 
onward endeavour to refute the contrat social and deny the 
existence of natural rights; it is of no use their filling their 
writings with a profusion of judicious and sensible maxims, a 
collection of which would make an admirable hand-book if 
good sense in politics were a branch of instruction; their 
utilitarianism is destined to make a formidable breach in the 
old political fortress. Priestley and Paley began this work of 
destruction; Bentham gave the finishing touches to it. 





IV 


Combining a rare power of analysis with consummate skill 
in classification and a passion for detail, Bentham subjected 
several departments of English legislation to a minute examina- 
tion. He took each institution to pieces as a clockmaker does 
the works of a clock. Applying the criterion of utility in 
every case, he contrasted the end with the means, and, guided 
solely by logic, pronounced his sentence of condemnation; for 
the province which he was exploring presented a vast chaos of 
enactments heaped together at random and placed one on the 
top of the other without method or guiding principle. Bentham 
“laid bare this mass of rubbish and called on mankind to throw 
off the tyranny of authority and to reject the wisdom of our 
ancestors in the sphere of law.”? Then, by means of the same 
principle of utility which he had used for his analysis, Bentham 
constructed a synthesis of morals and of politics culminating 
in the individual conscience sovereign judge of all things and 
in each citizen “ his own legislator.” 

The moral conscience of man to which philanthropy appealed, 


as well as the justice springing from natural right to which the 
French philosophers had recourse, seemed to Bentham inade- 
uate and dangerous supports for propping up the social system. 


metaphor which each man can interpret as he likes. And 





1 Preface to the Fragment on Government, 2d ed. 
VOL, I—D 


34 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





moral conscience ? Simply an arbitrary distinction between 
good and ill, resting in reality on unreasoning feelings of 
sympathy or antipathy. Bentham rejects a priori rationalism 
and_claims_to_have- discovered in experience _ that_nature has 

r the sway of pleasure and pain, that we owe 
all our ideas to them, that we refer to them all il our judgments 


aud all the decisive steps of our life. “This tendency to sesk 
for pleasure and avoid pain, both of a physical and moral de- 
scription, being, as it is, eternal and irresistible, constitutes our 
rule of conduct: each man must follow his interest and take 
utility for the criterion of his actions, arriving at the value of 
their results by a simple arithmetical calculation which strikes 
the balance of pains and pleasures. “No subtlety, no meta- 
physics; no need to consult Plato or Aristotle. Pain and 
pleasure are felt as such by every man, by the peasant as well 
as the monarch, by the unlearned man as well as the philoso- 
pher.”* Aseach man possesses the common measure of utility, 
soeach is judge of his own utility; this is and must be so, 
otherwise man would | not ; be a rational agent.” The only thing 
to do is to let him alone. To apprehend a bellum omnium contra 
omnes is to mistake the real motives of human actions; given 
the mutual dependence of men in a social state, not only for 
the satisfaction of their material wants, but also for the equally 
natural enjoyment of the esteem and affection of their fellow- 
creatures, egoism is necessarily converted into altruism. ‘“ So- 
ciety is so constituted that in working for our own happiness 
we work for the general welfare.” * What is the use of inter- 
ference by the State? And Bentham is never weary of saying 
to the legislator: “leave us alone, be quiet, get out of my light.” 
The dictates of prudence will suffice of themselves in the case 
of actions which only concern the individual. The law should 
only intervene to prevent men from injuring each other. Its 
aid is necessary in cases of this sort because the majority of 
mankind are not sufficiently enlightened to grasp the connec- 
tion between personal and general interest. Every law is an 























1 Principes de législation, Ch. I. (N.B. Most of the passages quoted here 
are taken from the French edition of Bentham’s works by Dumont; being to 
a great extent compiled from Bentham’s manuscripts and having been pub- 
lished before the English edition, the French version is thus sometimes the 
real original edition). 2 Ibid. Ch. X 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 35 





evil in itself, because it is an infraction of the liberty of the 
individual, and it can only be justified when it serves to pre- 
vent or restrain a larger infraction of liberty than it consti- 
tutes in itself, that is to say, when the safety of individuals is 
endangered. “It is in this way that poisons administered in 
proper doses come to be remedies.” | 

How can we ensure the administration of the proper dose 
of poison, how ought government to be constituted ? Approach- 
ing this question after having spent years in defending the 
individual against the importunities of the legislator, Bentham 
retains his principle of personal interest as a motive for 
action only in its strict sense of pure egoism. The persons 
who rule, being men, are necessarily egoists; they therefore 
inevitably_pursue_their own interest and not that of the 
ruled. In fact, the object of government in all it its forms has 
always be been not the greatest happiness of those for whom but 
~ that of those by whom it is carried on, ' the happiness of the few 
(the ruling interest), and not of the many. The Monarchy, 
the House of Lords, the Established Church, are all examples 
of the ruling interest which is hostile to ale interest of the 
many. To prevent this clashing of interests in the future, 


power must be Placed in the hands of the es number. 














ments into England. 
_ These conclusions are the same as those which French ideol- 
ogy had arrived at, and, as a matter of fact, they were obtained 
by the same method. Although wearing the English garb of em- 
pirical moralist, Bentham, in constructing his synthesis (which 
must not be confounded with the analytical portion of his work, 
as is usually done), adopts the same mode of procedure as the 
French metaphysicians, that of a priori reasoning.’ Discard- 


REE So te 





1In fact Bentham’s premises, that pleasure and pain are man’s only sensa- 
tions, and that utility is the mainspring of human actions, are in no way 
derived from experience. Even supposing that utility is the only motive of 
human actions, how does it follow, as a matter of experience, that it ought to 
be the rule of conduct? Evidently this conclusion, which has been arrived at 
by an abrupt mental transition, is only a postulate. And in that case how 
can the principle of utility serve as a universal and infallible criterion? If 


36 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirst part 





ing, like them, the teaching of history, because “the past is of 
no use” (Bentham’s own remark made in the course of a con- 
versation with Philaréte Chasle, and related by the latter in 
his Memoirs), and seeing in social man only “ what essentially 
appertains to man,” according to the expression of Rousseau, 
to wit, human nature in general, he completely identifies him 
with one of his attributes. Bentham’s man never follows his_ 
impulses or his habits; he is always deliberating, always en- 
gaged in calculation, jt , just as the personage of the ideologists 
does nothing but indulge in abstract reasoning. Consequently, 
in_his system men appear perfectly like each other in all lati- 
tudes. The government suited to them is the same every- 


where—a representative democracy. Humanity is one and 
indivisible for Bentham, just_as for the French ideologists. 



































it is a question of utility in its ordinary sense, then the consequences of 
actions considered from this point of view will always fall below their 
real scope; for in the moral world acts are prolonged by their effects, and 
owing to the reactions caused by the phenomena with which they come in 
contact on their path they continually form new combinations producing new 
effects, which combine in their turn. If the criterion of utility rises higher 
than the immediate consequences, if it is meant to include every possible con- 
sequence, to consider acts done by men living in a state of society in the light 
of a remote future (People, observes Bentham, who have not a clear idea of 
the useful often quote the remark of Aristides: ‘‘ Themistocles’ plan is very 
advantageous but it is very unjust.’’ Aristides might have said: Themisto- 
cles’ plan would be useful for the moment and detrimental for future ages, 
what it offers us is nothing in comparison with what it deprives us of. — Princi- 
ples of Legislation, Ch. V), then it borders on the infinite, and is on a par with 
every ideal standard set up by the intellect for judging things sub specie xter- 
nitatis — the just, the good, the beautiful—in short with every term by which 
the mind can conceive of the absolute. Bentham himself declares that the useful 
viewed in its larger application and not in the vulgar sense is in no way opposed 
to the just, that it even coincides with the just. But Godwin, the authorized 
representative of ideology, makes no scruple of admitting that justice coincides 
with utility. Bentham therefore did not do away with “the absolute ; he only 
rejected all the other forms of it as false gods; he repudiated them in order 
to proclaim that his absolute was the only true one and that the world was 
governed by it. No doubt, every one claims this attribute for his god; but 
who has seen these gods? Do they not exist only in the imagination of those 
who worship them? Whereas Bentham’s sovereign principle, according to 
him, can be touched, so to speak, and be seen at work. We cannot estimate 
the value of the just, but we can estimate the value of the useful; in other 
words, Bentham’s principle is alone susceptible of a scientific method in its 
application. The objection will be made that pleasures and pains are not ho- 
mogeneous quantities. Be it so, but as they eventually take the form of sen- 
sations, all that you have to do is to compare the sensations. It is true that 
they vary according to the character of the person who feels them and accord- 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 37 


For Bentham, too, patriotism is bound to give way to it. “I 
should repudiate with horror,” he declared, “the imputation 
of patriotism, if being a friend of my country involved being 
an enemy of the human race,” — because, as the French ideolo- 
gists would have said, the human race is composed of the 
same “men,” because, says Bentham, the permanent interests 
of all peoples are identical.’ 

This synthesis of Bentham’s, obtained by the same logical 
process as the synthesis of the French ideologists, was, like 
it, doomed to failure, but not because it originated in an ideal 
conception. Bentham’s attempt, if it were a final one, would 
alone suffice to show how difficult or even impossible it is to 
discover a governing principle of life in the facts supplied by 
experience. Starting from a tangible fact and obliged to take 





ing to the external circumstances which react on his sensibility. Nevertheless, 
every sensation contains an objective element which can be separated from 
the others. Science might make lists of these objective elements obtained 
by means of analysis, and so compile general inventories of sensations which 
would show us how to act with certainty, and even how to reduce the most 
difficult problems involved in the choice of acts conducing to happiness to a 
sort of mechanical operation. 

Bentham, however, while recommending a mathematical appraisement of 
sensations, admits that of ‘‘ two categories of cireumstances’’ which react on 
the sensibility only one can be observed in all its particulars, that the ‘‘ cir- 
cumstances of the first order,’’ such as temperament, strength, constancy of 
mind, natural and acquired habits, etc., are beyond the reach of calculation, 
and that we must therefore be content with ‘‘ circumstances of the second 
order,’’ such as age, sex, rank, etc. But how can the total lay claim to cor- 
rectness if we are obliged to omit several items, and those the most important 
ones, from the account? In that case is not the value of these items left to 
the arbitrary and varying estimate of the person who makes the valuation ? 
Bentham’s criterion is consequently no more experimental in its application 
than in its origin. The scientific conscience which was to take the place of 
the moral conscience is no scientific couscience at all, and yet it preserves the 
authority with which Bentham had invested it on the strength of its imaginary 
qualities; it is made the sovereign judge of good and evil, just like the judge in- 
stalled by the right of nature. In both cases an unconscious ideal transition from 
the relative to the absolute has given the appearance of a reality to what after 
all was only a conception of the intellect. The criterion of utility which at 
one time takes into consideration the immediate consequences and nothing 
more, as we are in the habit of believing, and at another weighs all the conse- 
quences of actions, as Bentham pretends, is a fallacy which only facilitates 
the step from the relative to the absolute. It is the sop thrown to the positive 
mind of England, to that of Bentham himself and his fellow-countrymen, in 
order to lull them into security. 

1 Dumont’s “ discours préliminaire ’’ prefixed to the Tactique des assemblées 
délibérantes. 


38 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





the road of ideology in spite of himself, Bentham repeated 
the error of the French ideologists, who, having set up an ideal_ 
controlling principle of social life, made no allowance for the 
counter-operation of social facts, but drew on it ad infinitum, 
like a universal legatee taking a mistaken view of the rights 
conferred on him by his legal title. In_like tham 
took for his starting-point man not i in the relative aspect which 
he bears in real life but in his abstract nature, and transformed 
him into a being complete in itself. Society cons equently was 
reduced _to an aggregate of atoms, to a sum total of interests 
requiring only to be left to themselves. The raison d’étre of 
a_power st set over individual interests was nothing but the 
protection of their unfettered development. Henceforth the 
State _was_bound to be only a a watch-dog, and not an active 
factor in the moral development of society. To prevent the © 


dog from biting those whom he is set to guard, he must have a 


good strong muzzle on; the powers of the State must be strictly 
limited; the freedom of the individual can only be obtained 
on this condition. 





Vv 


All these doctrines — political economy, empirical utilitari- 
anism, the rights of man in their French dress or in their 
English garb of Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy — converge 
on_one centre and tend to form a new social cosmogony, in 
aan the SEAS -point as | well as the goal is the individual 





parts Tight and heat. to. the individual, but the latter which is 
the source of both. Attaining its final expression in Bentham, 
this idea “constantly ran through English thought since man 
and his rights and duties had become a subject of study. 
Writers frequently stated it in language of great precision 
without realizing its political significance. “ Although,” re- 
marks the highly conservative Paley, “we speak of com- 
munities as of sentient beings; although we ascribe to them 
happiness and misery, desires, interests, and passions; nothing 
really exists or feels but individuals. The happiness of a 
people is made up of the happiness of single persons. . . . 
The riches, strength, and glory of nations, the topics which 
history celebrates, and which alone almost engage the praises 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 39 





and possess the admiration of mankind, have no value farther 
than as they contribute to this end” (to the greater happiness 
of individuals).! Godwin denies that society has any existence 
of its own. “Society is an ideal existence and not on its own 
account entitled to the smallest regard. The wealth, prosper- 
ity, and glory of the whole are unintelligible chimeras. Set 
no value on anything but in proportion as you are convinced 
of its tendency to make individual men happy and virtuous.” ? 
“Let there be no doubt .about it,” cries Bentham; “the inter- 
ests of individuals, it is said, must give way to the public 
interests. But what is the meaning of that? Is not each 
individual as much a part of the public as any other? Indi- 
vidual interests are the only real interests. Take care of in- 
dividuals. Don’t meddle with them, and don’t allow any one 
else to meddle with them, and you will have done enough for 
the public.” 

These notions, which were so opposed to the spirit of the 
traditional order of things, could not have forced them- 
selves on the public mind if that order itself had not been 
vehemently assailed from several points at the same time. A 
social idea, however great its intrinsic upward force, can only 
advance in proportion as a vacuum is formed in front of it 
by the psychological action of material or moral facts. Eng. 
lish_society—in_the first quarter of the century came under 
the influence of both kinds of reaction. The first was brought 
about by the industrial revolution to which I shall refer later 
on. In the moral sphere it was Bentham again who most con- 
tributed to the formation of a state of mind ready to welcome 
new ideas. By making a detailed examination of English 
institutions, and showing what a quantity of refuse had ac- 
cumulated in them for centuries, he broke the charm of histor- 
ical continuity, shattered people’s belief in the perfection of 
those institutions, and lowered the insular pride of his fellow- 
countrymen. These results were obtained as much by Ben- 
tham’s personal action as by that of his disciples who propa- 
gated the master’s doctrine, the original sources of which were 
little known to the great mass of the public. These disciples, 
a small group of remarkable men, who called themselves 


1 Principles of Moral Philosophy, Book VI, Ch. XI. 
2 Enquiry concerning Political Justice, 2d ed. Lond. 1796, II, 189. 


40 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First Part 





“Philosophical Radicals,” “offered an uncompromising oppo- 
sition to many of the generally received opinions.”! Under 
their direct inspiration “an incessant fire”? was opened in the 
daily Press “against the wretched superstition that the English 
institutions were models of excellence, exposing the absurdities 
and vices of the law and the courts of justice, paid and unpaid, 
until they forced some sense of them into people’s minds.” ? 
In the Westminster Review, “which made considerable noise 
in the world,” the Philosophical Radicals attacked the landed 
aristocracy, the unpaid magistracy, the Established Church, 
and every institution which promoted the domination of a 
class, the happiness of a few as opposed to the “ happiness of 
the greatest number.” They sang the praises of personal prop- 
erty and of the middle class which held it. The economists, 
especially Ricardo, joined in the strain and glorified capital, 
wealth which passes to the bearer, to “man,” and depreciated 
property in land, the aristocratic form of wealth which dom- 
ineers over man and keeps the individual in a subordinate 
position. Confining the sphere of the State to the protection 
of persons and the security of property, the Philosophical 
Radicals were indefatigable in agitating for the liberty of the 
individual in every department and against every one, even 
going so far as to reject the system of co-operation in the 
economical sphere. In conjunction with the Economists they 
vehemently opposed protection and advocated free trade. 
Finally, as the principal article of their political creed, they 
demanded a democratic suffrage, protesting at the same time 
that their demand for it was not based on the rights of man, 
but that it was claimed “as the most essential of securities 
for good government.” ® 

These ideas made a breach in the public conscience which 
grew wider and wider as time went on. Young men of a 
thoughtful turn of mind, the rising generation who were enter- 
ing into public life and embracing liberal professions, discussed 
the radical doctrines with ardour.* All classes were affected 
by them in the long run, not with the result that political par- 
tisans were converted and went over to the opposite side, but 


1 John Stuart Mill, Awtobiography, Lond. 1873, p. 100. 
2 Ibid. -p. 90. 8 Thid. p. 107. 
4 Fotabaal Life of George Grote, by Mrs. Grote, Lond. 1873, p. 24. 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 41 





that, while “ retaining their old distinctive names, men reasoned 
after a new fashion and according to principles wholly different 
from those to which they had been previously accustomed.” * 

The movement was accentuated by contact with foreign 
countries, which became much closer after the war. When 
the ports of the kingdom were opened on the conclusion of the 
peace, travellers thronged to the Continent in never-ending 
crowds. <A constant traffic to and fro arose between the two 
shores of the Channel, and every vessel which brought trav- 
ellers home brought with them feelings of commiseration for 
insular institutions and ideas. 

With the commencement of the century another force, less 
obtrusive but extremely penetrating, appears on the scene to_ 


give a new impulse to thought — literature, already invaded 
by the spirit of revolt, by romanticism. Classic formalism is 
discarded, and henceforth inspiration is sought in the depths 
of the soul, and not in the outside world, the routine of which 
weighs like lead on the individual. The mere contact with 
this atmosphere of cant, the pestilent fumes of which stifle all 
personal initiative, is sufficient to scare away the choicer spirits, 
and the leaders of the new literary movement, the Southeys, 
the Coleridges, and the Wordsworths, take refuge in the North, 
in the Lake country, to probe the depths of their hearts amidst 
the tranquillity of nature. Byron begins by frequenting the 
fashionable world and leading its empty, frivolous life, only 
to end by regarding it with increased contempt and disgust. 
Each of his poems which reaches the shores of his native coun- 
try from the distant scenes of his voluntary exile fills the air 
with doubt and fans the flame of revolt in the hearts and minds 
of his fellow-countrymen. 


When we arrive at the second quarter of the century every 



































VI 


About the same time that the revolution in the sphere of 
ideas was taking place, another revolution of a material kind 


1 Roebuck, J. A., History of the Whig Ministry of 1830 to the passing of 
the Reform Bill, Lond. 1852, Vol. I, p. 344. 


42 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rirst part 





was in full swing, which had run a parallel course with the 
first, starting from the middle of the eighteenth century — 
the industrial transformation of the country effected by the 
great mechanical inventions, the spinning-jenny, with its numer- 
ous improvements, and the steam-engine. It shook the ancient 
edifice from top to bottom, and produced a general shifting of 
positions throughout it. Industry, which up to this time had 
been carried on at home by workmen dispersed throughout the 
country districts and in small towns, was concentrated in large 
factories and carried on by machinery which gave work to hun- 
dreds and thousands of hands. Country life and agriculture 
were deserted for the towns. In the north of England, hitherto 
sparsely populated, but abounding in coal suitable for feeding 
the furnaces, huge agglomerations of men engaged in indus- 
trial labour sprang into existence. The raw material was trans- 
formed as if by the wand of the magician,’ the manufacturers 
turned out goods incessantly, daily displaying fresh resources, 
securing the markets of the world and flooding them with their 
products.” 

In this marvellous outburst of industry individual effort and 
the spirit of enterprise met with unexampled success. Men 
belonging to the lower strata of society rose to high positions 


in the world. Personal initiative was constantly stimulated, 
and_daring action often found its reward. It seemed as if 
everything might be within the reach of all; every man tried 
to rise and to extend the circle of his activity. These aspira- 
tions eventually assumed a morbid, feverish character; the 
wild speculation of the years 1824-1825 supphed striking 


proof of this; in fact t he passion for individual expansion was 


not a less s powerful factor than the _greed of gain. However 


this may be, a considerable number of men "managed to rise 
from the ranks. Some took the lead in producing fresh 
wealth, others helped to develop it, others again benefited by 


1 Thus Sir John Throgmorton was able to wear at dinner a suit the cloth of 
which came from wool which had been on the backs of sheep that very morn- 
ing (Past and Present State of the Country, Quarterly Review, 1825, Vol. 32, 
p. 174). 

2Tn less than half a century the value of cotton exported increased more 
than fifty-three times over, from £864,000 in 1785 to £46,000,000 in 1833. 

3 “Tt was not altogether rapacity, with many the charm was in the excite- 
ment,—in the pleasure of sympathy in large enterprises, — in the rousing of 


SECOND cHAP.]| BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 43 





it — manufacturers, factory managers, traders, contractors, pro- 


fessional men who made fortunes. They acquired new tastes 
and new ideas, and above all new desires and new ambitions. 


The monotonous and colourless existence of the middle class, 
of which we have caught a glimpse in the last century, was 
replaced by a more refined mode of life. Members of the new 
aristocracy of capital, whose wealth rivalled and often sur- 
passed that of the old aristocracy of race, were anxious to min- 
gle with the latter. At the close of the Napoleonic wars, in 
which immense fortunes were made, a_great struggle took 
place; several of the new men managed to force their way into 
i « society,’ ’ and its its ranks were thrown into confusion. It_was 

vain that society endeavoured to entrench itself behind the 
barriers of aristocratic exc exclusiveness. It_was assailed at_an- - 
other point, that of its position o of ruling class in the State. 
Here it held power by its monopoly of the parliamentary 
suffrage, which was in the hands of certain fixed groups. All 
the new-comers, and especially the inhabitants of the great 
towns created or developed by the rise of industry, were conse- 
quently excluded from the franchise. The contrast between 
their Se the new society and their legal position in 
the State-flashed upon them. Like their first parents in the 
Bible, they eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and 
knew that they were naked. They demanded their share of 
power, for they too were men and Englishmen: “ We claim 
the birthright of our sires, by union, justice, reason, law.”’? 
The aspirations of the new social strata, their consciousness of 
their strength, were reinforced by a conviction of their right. 
The ideas which had been fermenting in England since the | 
middle of the eighteenth century now had the material power 
the faculties of imagination and conception when their field of commerce ex- 
tended over the Pampas and the Andes, and beyond the farthest seas and 
among the ice-rocks of the poles.” (History of the Thirty Years’ Peace, by 
H. Martineau, I, 352.) 

Cf. Mr. Bryce’s remarks on the halo of idealism which the imagination of 
the Americans of the far West throws around their mad race for wealth: ‘‘It 
is not really or at least it is not wholly sordid. These people are intoxicated 
by the majestic scale of the nature in which their lot is cast, enormous mineral 
deposits, boundless prairies, forests which, even squandered, will supply tim- 
ber to the United States for centuries ...”’ (The American Commonwealth, 
3d ed. Vol. II, Ch. CX VII, The Temper of the West.) 


1 From the reformist hymn sung at Birmingham and elsewhere by the 
members of the popular organizations known as Political Unions. 


44 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





of the urban populations as their ally, and the old ruling 
class surrendered. By the Bill of 1832 the franchise was con- 
ferred on every inhabitant of a borough with a certain property 
qualification, and the monopoly of parliamentary representa- 
tion was thus taken out of the hands of the aristocracy. The 
reforms which followed that of 1832 had the same tendency ; 
their_effect was to break up the old system and sever the 


traditionary bonds which united society. The ties which 
bound the Established Church to the State were loosened in 
1828, and gradually relaxed still further as years went on. The 
repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, in 1828, opened the 
public offices and Parliament to Dissenters. The Emancipa- 
tion of the Catholics, in 1829, admitted the detested Papists to 
political life. The reformed Parliament completed these meas- 
ures by authorizing the Dissenters to celebrate marriages in 
their chapels, and by making the registration of births and 
deaths a purely civil function independent of ecclesiastical 
ceremonies. The municipal reform of 1835 abolished the oli- 
garchical corporations under the control of the territorial mag- 
nates, and entrusted the government of the towns to the great 
body of ratepayers. The relief of the poor, which had been 
managed by the landlords in their capacity of magistrates, was 
reorganized by the introduction of representatives elected by 
the population and of a large staff of salaried officials under a 
central board in London. The reform of the Poor Laws, by 
which these changes were effected, diminished the importance 
of the “great unpaid” in the principal branch of local self- 
government. The successive formation of new administrative 
departments, as that of public health and others, with officials 
controlled by boards in London, deprived the gentry still more 
of their sphere of action in local public life and of their oppor- 
tunities of daily contact with the population. The abolition of 
the protectionist system, begun under Huskisson and completed 
by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, gave the finishing 
stroke to the landlords’ ascendancy, not only from the economic 
but also from the social point of view. It weakened their feudal 
power with the rights and duties involved in it. Sir Robert 
Peel, before he became a convert to free trade, opposed the 
repeal of the duties on corn for the very reason that the 
landowners, when reduced to commercial competition and 








SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 45 





forced to adopt a purely business line of conduct, would no 
longer be able to cultivate the moral and social relations which 
had existed for centuries between landlords, farmers, and la- 
pourers, and that the measure “woulli alter the character of 
the country.”' The reduced incomes of the landlords pre- 
vented them from displaying their old hospitality and liberal- 
ity, and their attractive power ceased to exist in the same 
degree. The new means of locomotion and of communication, 
introduced in the years 1830-1840, altered the old relations 
between the different classes still more. In the relative state 
of isolation which prevailed before the era of railways, the 
great landlords irradiated the whole neighbourhood and made 
it gravitate with all its interests in their orbit. The shop- 
keepers and artisans of the neighbouring town lived on their 
custom. Their entry into a town with a string of coaches and 
carriages was an event which set all the population agog. 
These relations, with their element of prestige on the one side 
and of dependence on the other, came to an end when, owing 
to the construction of railways, people could travel with less 
expense to the great centres of population, where they found 
all that the most capricious taste could desire. The moral 
effect which increased facility of communication produced by 
revealing new worlds and opening up fresh horizons proved a 
still stronger dissolvent. 


VII 


The successor to the system which was thus perishing bit 
by bit, a result which the representatives of ideology had 
demanded for half a century, was the very personage of whom 
they had constituted themselves the champions — the individ- 
ual. The religious revival had told him that he had a soul of 
his own; the laws of religious emancipation acknowledge the 
fact. Political economy and philosophy had declared that he 
had his own interests and consequently his own rights; the 
Bill of 1832 recognizes them by placing the electoral qualifica- 
tion on an elastic and rational basis and thus making the fran- 
chise a security payable “to bearer.” The reform of the Poor 
Laws introduces the same principle in the administration of 
relief to the poorer classes. The abolition of restrictive duties 


1 Hansard, 3d series, Vol. CX XXI, p. 376. 


46 | DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





delivers man from all impediments to his activity and starts 
him on the wild career of free competition. Railways, the 
telegraph and the penny- post, by uniting and separating people 
and things at will, complete the emancipation of the individ- 
ual. Formerly, when means of communication were difficult, 
slow, and irregular, every one was confined within the narrow 
range of his own home and compelled to submit to all its- 
material and moral servitudes; people_resigned themselves. 
to it beforehand, and considered themselves at the mercy of 
an_inevitable destiny which baffled all human combinations. ; 
But now a D8 obstacles = Space e and ti time seemed to melt away 








of nature were always ¢ at hand ar to obey their 1 reer 

It is true that this exaltation of the individual had found 
scope mostly in the middle class, and that some of the very 
phenomena which had contributed to his emancipation soon 
began to impose restrictions on it. The development of indus- 
try did_ much to open a field for the individual, but the same 


movement created the industrial serf side by side with the in- 
dustrial baron. The workmen who flocked into the factories, 
uprooted from the soil, obliged to give up work in their own 
homes, bound like slaves to the machinery, fell into a state of 
complete dependence on the capitalist class, which constituted 
a new sort of feudalism in the transformed social system. The 
railways which destroyed the old local relations of vassalage 
substituted for them a new kind of dependence by centralizing 
the markets of the country and the circulation of wealth. The 
post-office and the telegraph, by contributing to centralization, 
also helped to make the individual a satellite of the system of 
which the capital or the great provincial town was becoming 
the centre. 

In more than one way then man was once more caught in 


a 





1 Sydney Smith says, recalling his travels in the:good old days: ‘‘In going 
from Taunton to Bath I suffered between 10,000 and 12,000 severe contusions, 
before stone-breaking Macadam was born . . . and whatever miseries I suf- 
fered, I had no post to whisk my complaints for a single penny to the remot- 
est corners of the empire; and yet in spite of all these privations, I lived on 
quietly, and am now ashamed that I was not more discontented. ”* (Modern 
Changes, Works, p. 678.) 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 47 





the toils; another hierarchy, and_with it_a new species of sub- 
ordination, arose in the industrial world. But the new ties, 
being of a purely mechanical kind, and having none of the 
binding force which held the old society together, not only did 
not check the movement but accelerated it. They revealed the 
process of individualist expansion which was at work in Eng- 


between man and man having ceased and the social horizon 


being enlarged, the ual wa 
society which had undergone transformation. When manu- 


facturing industry took the place of domestic labour, direct 
intercourse between the owners of factories and the shifting 
masses of workmen became impossible ; henceforth their only 
points of contact were work and wages, governed by the stern 
law of supply and demand; they became anonymous abstrac- 
tions one to the other; they came together and parted without 
seeing each other. The workmen, herded together in the fac- 
tories, had no bond of union but that of chance promiscuity ; 
their only approach to an organic existence was an ephemeral 
combination for purposes of revolt, such as that of the Chartists, 
for instance. Agricultural labour itself was also affected by 
the new order of things; it assumed a nomadic impersonal 
character. The introduction of machinery in agricultural 
operations by substituting work in gangs for individual labour 
led to farming on a large scale, just as it had created industry 
on a large scale in towns. Conducted on the same principle of 
division of labour, agricultural production, to which nature has 
set bounds in point of quantity, ceased to provide continuous 
employment; there was no need to spend the winter in thrash- 
ing by hand the corn which had been reaped; everything could 
be done by the machine almost at the same time. It was no 
longer necessary to engage men permanently, and so the agri- 
cultural labourer was hired by the week instead of by the 
year. Wandering troops of labourers provided by contractors 
or agents travelled from county to county (gang system), just 
like the factory-hands who migrated from town to town. The 
changes in the world of commerce also altered the relations 
between man and man by substituting fluctuations in custom 
for the old fixity of connection between buyer and seller. 
Even in the staff of commercial houses, offices, and shops, men 


OO eee oe 





48 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [FIRST PART 





were too often strangers to each other; the time had gone by 
when, as before the second half of the eighteenth century, 
master and workman, employer and employee, formed a single 
family. They now belonged to different strata of society. The 
. more refined mode of life which grew up in the middle class in 
consequence of the industrial revolution was marked by dis- 
tinctions which varied according to the income of its members, 
and_each distinction constituted a ‘a new line of f dem. arcation and 
separation. “ 

Thus the_second stage in the movement which broke up 
English society was completed: by destroying the old hier- - 
archy it set free the individual; in setting him free it isolated 


him. But the change did not stop there ; the process of isola- 
tion and ion and separation gave rise in its turn to a fresh develop- 
ment of the individualist movement, which formed, as it were, 
its synthesis : it became a levelling process as well. In de- 
composing the concrete, the logic of facts as well as that of 
ideas, opened the door to the general. Here as elsewhere 
industrialism gave the first impulse. In the eyes of the manu- 
facturer the mass of human beings who toiled in the factory 
were only workmen, and the workman associated the factory- 
owner only with the idea of capitalist or master. Not being 
brought into immediate contact, they formed a conception of 
each other by mentally eliminating the special characteristics 
of the individual and retaining only what he had in common 
with the other members of his class. In proportion as the 
new conditions of existence enlarged the social horizon in 
the sphere of life, just as it expanded by means of thought, 
the process of abstraction extended to all social relations. 
The rapid growth of large towns destroyed the old neigh- 
bourly intercourse, or at all events, its intimate character. The 
extension of markets again stripped buyers and sellers of their 
concrete individuality, and resolved them into the general cate- 


gories of tre adesmen and customers. Railways, by bringing to- 
gether for half an hour men who saw each other for the first 
and perhaps the last time, reduced them to the general notion 
of travellers, all placed on an equal footing by a uniform ticket, 
a piece of pasteboard printed wholesale for all present and 
future travellers. In great industrial enterprises creative 


energy and active will associated in the form of shares, negoti- 


















































SECOND CHAP.]| BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 49 





able securities, transferable to an infinite series of potential 
entities existing only as shareholders. Even the feelings which 
take their rise in the depths of the soul, such as the love of 
one’s neighbour and pity, were obliged, when projected over a 
larger area, to conform to abstract notions; the familiar figure 
of the wretched Jim or Tom, who had been the regular recip- 
ient of relief, gave place to the idea of the poor man, the 
poorer classes. 

The change of ideas involved a change in principles of con- 
duct. It is difficult, in fact, to feel a regard for a number of 
workmen whom one hardly knows by sight; you cannot be on 
cordial terms with all your fellow-travellers in a railway car- 
riage; you can be charitable to poor individuals but not to the 
poorer classes. They can only be enveloped in a more general 
sentiment. Being henceforth confined to particular cases only, 
the feelings of regard, of cordiality, of charity, as they assumed 
a general character, resolved themselves into an inclination to 
be correct and just towards all, and to respect the human ele- 
ment with its material and moral needs in the humblest and 
most wretched members of society." This applied equally to 
the moral sanction of the duties of man in a social state which 
consists of the feeling of responsibility to his fellow-creatures. 
Confined hitherto to the narrow range of his social circle, it 
now spread further and further beyond these limits; the tribu- 
nal of public opinion sat in judgment wherever cognizance 
could be taken of the individual’s conduct; at the bar of his 
conscience man became responsible not only to his own society 
in the restricted sense of the word, but to society in general, to 
his country, to the nation, even to humanity. Thus a readjust- 
ment of forces took place in man’s social existence between the 
particular which constituted nearly all his nis being and the general 
which occupied | but a. j a small portion of of it. Destined as he is 


1In cases where the moral obligations of social intercourse are supple- 
mented by those of the law, as in the relief of the poor, the legislature soon 
intervened to divert the legal obligations of their concrete character. A poor 
man was entitled to relief only when he belonged to the parish. An Act of 
Sir Robert Peel, passed in 1846, prescribes that every poor person who happens 
to be living in the parish shall be relieved, wherever he comes from. Subse- 
quent legislation on this subject only develops this principle by ‘‘ investing the 
relief of the poor more and more with the character of an abstract obligation.’’* 

* Aschrott, Das Englische Armenwesen, p. 148, Leipz. 1886. 

VOL, I—E 


50 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [FIRST PART 





by his finite and limited frame to cling to the concrete and 
the particular as his starting-point and strongest support, man 
nevertheless launched on all sides into the general, with the 
result that henceforth his social relations were bound to be 
guided not so much by sentiment, which expresses the percep- 
tion of the particular, as by general principles, less intense in 
their nature perhaps, but sufficiently comprehensive to take in 
the shifting multitudes of which the abstract social groups were 
henceforth composed, groups continually subject to expansion 
by reason of their continual motion. In a word, in passing 
from the concrete to the abstract, social relations exhibited a 
natural tendency towards the “principle which is commonly 
designated by the name of equality. 
The psychological process which social relations were under- 
going led therefore to the same conclusions as rationalism and 
logical path—that of abstraction and generali-_ 
zation. But while the latter moved in the untenanted world 
of speculation, the former operated in a living society, amid 
inveterate habits, traditions, prejudices and interests consti- 
tuting so many centripetal forces which check and often 
neutralize the most powerful centrifugal movements. Conse- 
quently each of the various stages of the former process was 
destined to be completed with a slowness which will often 
leave the actual situation a long way behind its logical postu- 
lates. The divergence that will thus arise between the decom- 


iti f the old soci and the generalization of the new 


s relations will constitute the drama of the history of 
modern English society and of the State which is its political 


embodiment. 





























VII 


Naturally united to society by the closest ties, the State in 
fact was passing through the same crisis. At one time serving 
as a target for the ideas and facts which assailed society, at 
another reflecting the movement which operated directly within 
it, the State underwent every phase of the logical process 
which we have just been considering in the case of society and 


the individual. ‘m of 18 he State out of the 
narrow_groove of a single ruling class. The series of Acts of 


a secularizing tendency which were passed from and after the 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 61 


year 1828 dissolved the istence of ue State 


and restored to the State its proper function. The numerous 





administrative reforms which followed the Bill of 1832 defined 
jin sphere of the State and the powers and operation of its 
organs, and made it clearly distinguishable from the old rep- 
resentatives of self-government recruited from the ranks of 


society. The State ceased to be a spirit pervading every mani- 
festation of public and social life; its figure began to assume a 


istinct outline; it became more human, more personal. But as 
it was no longer one and indivisible with society, which consti- 
tuted alike its foundation and its cohesive power, it ceased to 
be one and indivisible itself. Its own cohesion and that of its 
constituent parts became impaired. Local self-government was 
no longer linked to parliamentary government by the unbroken 
chain of a single and united ruling class. Henceforth each of 
them had its own existence with its own special authorities, 
its means and method of action which tended to isolate it in 
the great world of national life. Severed one from the other, 
local self-government and parliamentary government lost their 
homogeneous character in the new conditions under which 

they had to work; they crumbled away in their turn, thus 
establishing in the second degree the great fact of the sepa- 
ration of the emancipated State and society. 

Self-government was the first to supply the demonstration of 
this. It lost its consistency and was subjected to a systematic 
process of dismemberment. The habit of. piecemeal legislation 
which prevails in England no doubt had a great deal to do with 
this result. The movement of reform which triumphed in the 
Bill of 1832 did not abolish government by the gentry in local 
administration, it merely curtailed it: side by side with the 
magistrates, elective offices were created for certain branches of 
local self-government. But even this qualified homage paid to 
the democratic principle only went half way: in the constitu- 
encies which elected the local officers, the rich electors were 
given an increasing number of votes in proportion to the amount 
of the rates paid by them. This double moral enclave, however, 
was as nothing compared with the material enclaves created 
by the multiplicity and variety of the elective bodies imported 
one after another into the system of self-government, without 
a shadow of a plan and irrespective of all unity of conception. 


52 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





The reform of the Poor Laws divided the country, for purposes 
of Poor Law administration, into Unions (composed of so many 
parishes), which each elected a Board of Guardians. The 
fourteen thousand parishes of England and Wales were dis- 
tributed into about six hundred Unions, without the slightest 
consideration for the old historical and economic divisions, so 
that a Union was often in two counties and included urban 
and rural parishes, ete. What was done for Poor Law admin- 
istration has been repeated at different intervals, whenever 
the need of reforming a public service or creating a new one 
made itself felt: new electoral powers were conferred (for the 
maintenance of roads, for sanitary matters, etc.) with new 
districts, the boundaries of which in no way coincided with 
the other divisions of local government. The districts carved 
out for the various elective authorities sometimes met, some- 
times diverged, sometimes overlapped and sometimes inter- 
sected each other. Each authority taxed those within its 
jurisdiction separately, and had its independent budget of 
receipts and expenditure. “It prevents the possibility of 
anything like a local budget. It is impossible to make out 
what is the total expenditure for any given locality. The rate- 
payer who essayed the task could only give it up in bewildered 
disgust.”' The inevitable result was that interest in local 
affairs and habits of co-operation were discouraged. There 
was no fixed unit of local administration with a centre in 
which all the good-will and energy of the locality could be 
focussed. The old administrative unit, the parish, was 
swamped in the chaos of districts, authorities, and assess- 
ments. The vestry, which was composed of the ratepayers 
of the parish, continued to exist, but its most important func- 
tions were transferred little by little to the new elective 
bodies. Even in the privileged towns described as “municipal 
boroughs,” in which the reform of 1835 gave all the ratepayers 
a share in the administration of the borough, the sphere of 
action conceded to the municipalities was not an extensive one. 
On the other hand, the Unions, which gradually monopolized 
several departments of local government besides the relief of 
the poor, were too large to serve as a field for the discharge 
of civil duties. In the rural districts the difficulties were still 
1M. D. Chalmers, Local Government, Lond. 1883, p. 29. 


SECOND cHAP.| BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 53 





greater; there the Union presented a still more bloated and 
the parish a more emaciated appearance. There was hardly 
anything left to keep the public interest alive. The village 
vestry ceased to meet, for want of current business, and the 
villagers, as a farmer put it, never had “a chance of looking 
into each other’s mind.”’? 

At the same time t owing complexity of modern civiliza- 
tion multiplied the functions of local administration and led to 
the introduction, as in industry, of the principle of the division 
of labour. To meet the new requirements of the situation, 
the Legislature thought fit to introduce into the local de- 
partments a large staff of salaried officials, and for the sake 
of greater security it placed them under the control of the 
authorities in London, the Poor Law Board, etc. In this way 
officialism and centralization penetrated into local govern- 
ment and pushed the representatives of society out of it. 
The latter made no resistance, either because self-govern- 
ment in its new aspect, as we have just seen, did not offer a 
suitable field for action, or because they were indifferent on 
the subject. In his famous speech on the Chartist petition, Dis- 
raeli demonstrated with impassioned eloquence that the Chart- 
ists were the victims of the new political and social system, 
which had placed in power a new governing class which did 
not govern. “The old constitution invested a small portion of 
the nation with political rights. Those rights were entrusted 
to that small class on certain conditions —that they should 
guard the civil rights of the great multitude. It was not even 
left them as a matter of honour, society was so constituted that 
they were entrusted with duties which they were obliged to 
fulfil. They had transferred a great part of that political 
power to a new class, whom they had not invested with those 
great public duties. Great duties could alone confer great 
station, and the new class which had been invested with po- 
litical station had not been bound up with the great mass of the 
people by the exercise of social duties. For instance, the ad- 
ministration of justice, the regulation of parishes, the building 
of roads and bridges, the command of the militia and police, 
the employment of labour, the distribution of relief to the 





1Rey. T. W. Fowle, ‘‘ The Decay of Self-government in Villages,’’ Fort- 
nightly Review, April, 1879. 


54 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirsr parr 





destitute — these were great duties which ordinarily had been 
confined to that body in the nation which enjoyed and exer- 
cised political power. But now they had a class that had at- 
tained that great object that all the opulent desired — political 
power without the conditions annexed to its possession and with- 
out fulfilling the duties which it should impose. What was 
the consequence? ‘Those who thus possessed power without 
discharging its conditions and duties were naturally anxious to 
put themselves to the least possible expense, they were anxious 
to keep it without any appeal to their pocket and without any 
cost of their time. To gain this object they raised the cry of 
cheap government that served the first, to attain the second 
they called for the constant interference of the government.” ! 
In point of fact, when the middle class had obtained politi- 
cal power its civic ‘ardor our soon cooled down. The remnant of 
its enthusiasm was spent in the struggle 2 against the Corn Laws, 
in which its: material ae were involved. Having carried 





aside from the game of - “palltioe and devoted all its « energies. to 
amassing wealth and enjoying it. Thus both the substance and 
the spirit of the old self-government died away. 

Tic oats oF Doel ie GCE ub the old springs 
Dray ea ee ‘way as well. The ominous 
date of 1846, which marked the eclipse of the old society, 
brought this fact into strong relief. In thrusting the repeal of 
the Corn Laws on his followers, Sir Robert Peel shattered the 
historic Tory party. That party represented the opposition 
of the landed interest, which was the embodiment of the old 
England, to the new industrial classes. The abolition of the 
Corn Laws, following on so many other reforms, obliterated 
this antagonism. At the same time a considerable section 
of the Tory party, faithful to its traditions and its feelings, 




















1 Hansard, 3d series, Vol. XLIX, p. 248 (Sitting of the 12th of July, 1839). 
Cf. Gneist’s views on the process of destruction which the old basis of the 
English State (die innere Cohirenz der Communitates) was undergoing. The 
learned argument of the illustrious jurist is on the same lines as the fervid 
language of Disraeli. Recently Gneist has once more stated his favourite 
argument (Die heutige Lage der Englischen Verfassung nach den drei Reform- 
bills 1832, 1867, 1885, Deutsche Revue, 1887, t.1.). His last work, Die natio- 
nale Rechtsidee von den Stiéinden, Berlin, 1894, contains several passages giving 
expression to identical views. 


SECOND CHAP.] BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 55 





refused to follow Peel in his evolution and formed an inde- 
pendent group, equally hostile to Peel and to the Whigs. The_ 
dual system of party government at once lost its historical raison 
Wétre and its material basis. Henceforth therewas no homo- 
geneous majority in Parliament. The House of Commons con- 
tinued to split up into groups. The irreconcilable Tories, the 
“ Protectionists,” could not forgive Peel for his “great treason.” 
The Peelites, divided by a great gulf from the bulk of the Tory 
party, remained in a suspended state between it and the Liberal 
party. The latter was torn by internal dissensions which had 
been gathering ever since 1832. Forming a coalition of aris- 
tocratic Whigs, of representatives of the middle class, of Ben- 
thamite Radicals and Manchester Radicals, they had united 
in a fashion to lay siege to the Tory fortress, but when once 
the stronghold was taken, the allies had no reason for conciliat- 
ing each other, and their divergencies of origin, of temperament, 
of habits and aspirations were allowed full swing. Soon the 
traditional party ties slackened all along the parliamentary line ; 
ARSnCeee teas and no one could depend on his fol- 
lowers. This became a subject of general complaint. “I am 
told,” writes to Croker one of his correspondents, “that the 
House of Commons is becoming more unmanageable every ses- 
sion, that no division can be calculated upon, that so many of 
the town members owe no allegiance and vote for popularity.’’} 
Croker himself writes to Lord Brougham: “Phrase it as you 
will, —a House of Commons unmanageable or the country un- 
governable, — the indisputable fact is that our representative 
system is not only, as you say, likely to be brought into disre- 
pute, but is actually so, and will every session become more 
and more notoriously incompatible with what was called our 
constitution.”? This is not merely the peevish utterance of a 
splenetic Tory. The Greville Memoirs are full of observations 
of the same kind. Greville sums up the session of 1854 as fol- 
lows: “The whole conduct of the session and the relations of the 
government with the House of Commons presented something 
certainly very different from what had ever been seen before 
in the memory of the oldest statesman, implied a total dissolu- 
tion of party ties and obligations, and exhibited the Queen’s 


1 The Croker Papers, edited by L. J. Jennings, Lond. 1885, III, 327. 
2 Tbid. 340 (letter of the 21st of July, 1854). 


56 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





government and the House of Commons as resolved into their 
separate elements and acting towards each other in independ- 
ent and often antagonistic capacities.”’ In 1855 Greville notes: 
“Nobody owes allegiance or even any party ties or seems to 
care for any person or anything.” ? The Journal of 1856 re- 
peats Graham’s remarks to the effect that “there is not one 
man in the House of Commons who has ten followers, neither 
Gladstone, nor Disraeli, nor Palmerston.” ® 

Every day, in fact, the difference between the two great 
historical_parties grew Tess marke: You ¢ could not tell a 
moderate Tory from a Whig.* Personal considerations inevi- 
tably became factors of importance in parliamentary combina- 
tions. A policy was combated one day and adopted the next 
by the victorious coalition; ministers left office by one door 
and crept in at another. Members of Parliament transferred 
their allegiance to another leader without being false to their 
political convictions, because they had none to speak of; others 
withheld their support because they entertained opinions which 
they were not disposed to sacrifice to calculations of parlia- 
mentary strategy. From one motive or another the individual 
asserted his independence within the halls of Parliament as 
well as elsewhere. 

Politi he 
eration, and were at a loss for words to denounce the incon- 
sistency and insincerity displayed by members of all parties. 


These censors, like all laudatores temporis acti, little dreamed, 
in clinging to their traditional ideas, that they were applying 
old principles to a new society, or at all events to a society 
in course of transformation. However much the decline in 
political force of character and the weakening of political con- 








1 The Greville Memoirs, Longmans’ edition in 8 vols., Lond. 1888, VII, 182. 

2 [bid. 247. 3 Ibid. VIII, 41. 

4A foreign observer who has since acquired a certain celebrity, Herr 
Lothar Bucher, defined the two parties as follows: A Whig is a man who 
descends from John Russell’s grandmother, a Tory one who sits behind Dis- 
raeli (Der Parlamentarismus wie er ist, 1854, p. 113). A few years later an 
analogous definition was given by an old English parliamentarian. ‘*‘ What is 
a Liberal? A gentleman who, if Lord Derby were to issue a circular request- 
ing all those members who were disposed to accord to him any confidence 
would do him the favour to meet in St. James’ Square to hear his programme, 
would not respond to the invitation. Other test I know none.’’ (Sir John 
Walsh, The Practical Result of the Reform Act, Lond. 1860, p. 85.) 


SECOND CHAP.]| BREAK-UP OF THE OLD SOCIETY 57 





victions may have contributed to the result, the relaxation of 
discipline and the break-up of parliamentary life were not due 
to them alone. Parliament ceased to exhibit its old consist- 
ency because society had lost it. The constant multiplication 
of degrees in the social scale, the variety of new aspirations, the 
change_of sostsT relations from the conerete to a generalized 
standard, all found their way into the House, narrow as the 
entrance to it was at that time. Many a member of Parliament 
had to reckon, not with this or that magnate who disposed of a 
seat in his own dining-room, or with the small clique which 
enjoyed a similar power, but with a constituency composed of 
varied elements. He could no longer follow the advice of the 
Duke of Monmouth: “ You go with your family, sir.” Political 
duties and responsibilities, just_like the rules_for_priyate con- 
duct, were passing out of the concrete stage into that of the 
abstract and the general. In the old days political virtue con- 
sisted of loyalty to a chief; the oath of fealty taken by the 
vassal to his lord was an epitome of this ideal. There was 
nothing dishonouring even in fighting against one’s native 
country, as long as it was a loyal combat under the banner 
of the accepted chief; it was impossible to be untrue to one’s 
country if one remained faithful to one’s chief. Great cap- 
tains have been often known to offer their sword to one coun- 
try after another. Condé and Turenne take up arms against 
France; during the Revolution the émigrés join the enemies 
of their country without a shadow of scruple, because they 
are fighting for their Roy. In England the King is soon 
eclipsed by Parliament. A corporate body representing the 
community gradually becomes supreme, but its exercise of 
power is really based on the old idea. There are only two 
rival chiefs followed by their retainers who contend for the 
mastery, euphemistically described as two parties representing 
the natural dualism of political thought and alternately taking 
the helm of the State. When the new generalized social rela- 
tions widened the circle of duty and responsibility, the loyalty 
of the vassal ceased to be a virtue for the politician, and the 
inelastic fabric of government by historical parties, which were 
supposed to contain between them every political tendency and 
aspiration, became too narrow for the varied and varying rela- 
tions of political life, while too large for the old order of 

















58 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirst part 





things which had shrunk under the pressure of events. The 
break-up of the old English society was therefore logically 
bound to culminate in the downfall of party government, 
which was its highest _ expression _ ine . the _sphere | of politics. 














identified with parliamentary _ institutions, ‘demanded, like 
society, a more comprehensive guiding principle and a 
wider channel. In both cases the question at issue was 
whether this result would be obtained with more or less pro- 
longed friction between the old habits and the new require- 
ments, and more or less violent collisions between particular 
interests and the general interest; whether the break-up in 
society and Parliament would only be a period of transition, a 
sort of wilderness between Egypt and the land of Canaan, lead- 
ing to the adoption of principles, rules, and forms capable of 
reuniting society and the State in a new synthesis. The solu- 
tion of this twofold problem was reserved for the future, but 
one thing was clear: the exodus had commenced, the English 


people were on the march. 





THIRD CHAPTER 
ATTEMPTS AT REACTION 
iE 


THE exodus had commenced. But whether it was that the 
mountain from which the promised land could be descried was 
too distant and too lofty for some, or that others saw the paths 
leading to the new Canaan blocked by the rising torrent of 
individualism and were afraid of perishing in the wilderness 
with their kith and kin, cries of alarm and distress were raised 
in various quarters, and retrograde movements were attempted 
after several stages of the journey had been passed. 

The first attempt at reaction came from the Church. It was 
the Church which, identified with the State and inextricabl 
hound up with the ruling class, best symbolized the old one and 
indivisible order which covered the whole surface of society. 
And it was against the Church that was directed the first revolt 
of the repressed individual, of the individual conscience bent 
on asserting its relations with the Creator. From the second 
half of the eighteenth century the contending sects and the 
spirit of doubt and negation which invaded educated society 
worked continual havoe in the Church. When the State itself 
was obliged, from and after the year 1828, to sever one by one 
the Tegal ties which bound the citizen to the Church, the illusion 
even of external conformity was destroyed, and the confusion 
in the spiritual sphere became only too visible. It was then that 
champions of the Church arose at Oxford who sought to restore 
the old unity, men like Newman, Pusey, Keble, and Froude, 
subtle theologians and refined and tender poets. Their ardent 
imagination made them see the vast structure of the Estab- 
lished Church totter to its base, the crash of its falling ruins 
seemed to smite upon their ears, and they recoiled in mental 
affright, like a rider who reins in with a jerk on the brink of 

59 



































60 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





a precipice. Leaving out of consideration the secular process 
which was differentiating and individualizing the religious idea, 
a process which they would fain have regarded as a disagreeable , 
incident, as a bad dream, the Oxford group took a single step 
back to the first three centuries of Christianity. They per- | 
formed wonders of theological casuistry to prove that in spite of 
the Reformation, the Anglican Church differed in no way from 
the primitive Church, that it would only be resuming possession 
of its heritage in reverting to the tradition of the Catholic uni- 
versal Church, to the apostolical body of doctrine as transmitted 
by the Fathers of the Church, with belief in the regenerating 
virtue of baptism, in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Com- 
munion, in the sacraments which convey grace, in the power of 
the priests who administer them to lead the soul to salvation 
and pronounce the absolution of sins. Exhorting men to return 
to dogmas of this kind, which appeal to the believer’s imag- 
ination and stir his feeling for the marvellous, the authors of 
the Oxford movement surrounded public worship with ritual 
and ornament which flatter and lull the senses and through 
them cast a spell over the soul. For reason they substituted 
sentiment; to the inward faith which justifies they opposed 
the visible Church, communion with which, by means of ob- 
servance of external and uniform rites, suffices to obtain sal- 
vation; between the individual conscience and God, whom it 
beholds face to face, they interposed the priesthood as the 
depository of the traditions and the authority of the Church, 
and mercifully spared man the use of reason and all the 
mental distress which it involves. 

To ensure the acceptance of their doctrines, however, they 
too were obliged to appeal to public opinion, and they im- 
pressed their views on every thinking mind by means of small 
pamphlets called “tracts,” to which they owe their name of 
Tractarians. They who aimed at placing restrictions on or 
even suppressing individual judgment were forced in the end 
to admit its jurisdiction. The State, with its intervention in 
the affairs of the Church for the purpose of withdrawing this 
or that privilege, appeared a tyrant in their eyes, and they 
were reduced to plead the cause of liberty against authority 
on behalf of the Church as opposed to the State. When their 
doctrines were published to the world, a storm arose; the 


THIRD CHAP. | ATTEMPTS AT REACTION 61 





exercise of private judgment which they had provoked rent 
the Church itself asunder, — one party taking their side and 
another declaring against them. The Tractarians, when at- 
tacked, and Pusey at their head, took their stand on the 
right of free discussion. The whole controversy made relig- 
ious unity more remote than ever, but at the same time it 
stimulated the ardour of the combatants and intensified the 
religious life of the various groups into which believers were 
divided. The Oxford sect was the first to derive vital force 
from the movement, although it had failed in its ambitious 


attempt to restore religious unity. Having started_under the 


banner of authority and tradition, the Tractarians only suc- 


ceeded in proving that liberty is, after all, the safest principle 


of conduct in modern society. 




















if 


The agitation against latitudinarianism in religion promoted 
by the Oxford movement had hardly calmed down when 
another campaign was started against “political infidelity,” 
to combat the destruction of the old political creed which knit 
classes and individuals together. Disraeli, who was then at the 
threshold of his career, placed himself at the head of this 
movement. By descent a stranger to the traditions of English 
society, but profoundly imbued with the genius of his own race, 
in which the idealist element struggles for mastery with the 
realist, he declared war against the social atomism which he 
saw supreme on all sides. In his eyes, all was disorganization 
and _ de lization: “a mortgaged aristocracy, a gambling 
foreign commerce, a home trade founded on a morbid competi- 
tion, and a degraded people.” The Queen of England reigns 
over “two nations, the rich and the poor.” Class is set against 
class. “In the manufacturing districts there is no society but 
only an aggregation.” “How, Disraeli asked himself, are the 
elements of the nation to be again blended together?” By a 
new distribution of political power? No, this would be a repe- 
tition of the old error which consists in believing that national 
content can necessarily be found in political institutions. _A. 

olitical institution is only a machine; the motive power is 
the national character. The character of the English nation 
was declining, and it is this which must be worked upon. But 














62 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rrrst part 





in what way? Since the Peace there had been an attempt to 
reconstruct society on a purely rational foundation, on a basis 
of material motives and calculations, on the principle of utility, 
The experiment had failed, as it was bound to do, for the power 
of reason is limited. ‘We are not indebted to the Reason of 
man for any of the great achievements which are the landmarks 
of human action and human progress. an 1 : 
when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when 
he appeals to the imagination. Even Mormon counts more 
votaries than Bentham. ‘The surest ] 
character of a people is to appeal to their affections,” 

Disraeli, therefore, looking at the English society of his day, 
came to the conclusion that it was necessary to rekindle the 
old_feelings in men’s hearts—attachment to the Throne and 
to the Church, and social sympathy between the people and 
its natural leaders. The Whigs, in setting up an oligarchy for 
their own benefit, had turned the King into a Doge, and had 
separated the sovereign from the people, and two great exist- 
ences had been blotted out of English history —the Monarch 
and the Multitude. The new class which had been invested with 
political power in 1832 was not linked to the masses by the 
performance of social duties as under the old “territorial 
constitution,’ in which the fulfilment of great public duties 
alone conferred a great position. Wealth had been allowed 
to accumulate on a principle which ignored “the duty to 
endow the Church, to feed the poor, to guard the land and to 
execute justice for nothing.” “I see no other remedy,” con- 
eluded Disraeli, “for that war of classes and creeds which 
now agitates and menaces us but in an earnest return to a 
system which may be described generally as one of loyalty 
and reverence, of popular rights and social sympathies.” In 
this system “the Venetian oligarchy” and plutocracy would 
be eliminated to make way for a king acting as real leader of 
the nation, and for a people cherished by their betters and 
repaying them by devotion and affection. Salvation les in a 
return to these ideas which are identical with the old Tory 
principles upheld by the great Tory statesman Bolingbroke 
and revived by that other great statesman, Pitt. Modern con- 
servatism, which gathered round it a selfish coalition of in- 
terests and was itself the offspring of latitudinarianism, was 
































THIRD CHAP. ] ATTEMPTS AT REACTION 63 





powerless to give England a political creed which should be 
a permanent source of inspiration. 

To turn this programme of popular Toryism to account, the 
“Young England” party was formed, in which Disraeli was 
coy tae ear Foun men of good family full of romantic 
ideas. Under their inspiration solicitude for the humbler 
classes became the fashion among the landed aristocracy, in 
an autocratic and sentimental form. The landlords provided 
generously for the wants of their peasants, promoted their 
welfare, and organized popular fétes; largess was distributed 
at fixed times at the doors of baronial halls; daughters of 
noble houses made “ pilgrimages of charity” through the vil- 
lages; young lords played at cricket with the villagers. In 
return for this kind treatment the peasants were expected to 
be docile and submissive to their landlords in every relation 
of life. The movement did*hot go very far beyond these 
idyllic proceedings. The old flame which Young England 
wished to rekindle proved simply a display of fireworks. 
Sentiment was no match for facts, imagination was powerless 
to alter reality. English society was no longer in the feudal 
condition characterized by the class relations which Young 
England wished to see re-established. England had, so to 
speak, passed out of the phase of sentiment and entered on 
that of general principles. And Disraeli, who stood up for the 
Chartists, whom he regarded as victims of the social atomism, 
might have read the answer to his policy on the banners which 
they carried in their processions and which bore among others 
the motto: “We demand justice before charity.” The prob- 
lem with which society was confronted was to know “ how are 
the elements of the nation to be again blended together; in 
what spirit is that reorganization to take place,” it being ad- 
mitted that the spirit of feudalism was dying, and that a 
breath of liberty and independence was passing over society. 
Ignoring this main factor of the problem, the solution proposed 
by Young England was, to _use_a logical term, simply a petitio 
principii, which left things as they were. 


LT 


A far greater measure of success attended another -cham- 
pion, who also waged war against the new social system bred 








64 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirsr part 





of Benthamism and industrialism — Thomas Carlyle. Like 
Disraeli, he deplored the loss of the old social creed, consid- 
ered constitutional changes as only paltry expedients, and 
saw no hope of reform but in the re-establishment of a social 
leadership based on a conviction of duty in governors and 
governed. But unlike Disraeli, the man of action, Carlyle, a 
hermit centred in himself, his mind steeped in Scotch Pur- 
itanism, lived the whole crisis of his time in his inward soul. 
His heart welled over in vehement invective and solemn warn- 
ings addressed to his fellow-countrymen. For many a year 
his utterances were an endless recitative on the theme “Ah 
nation of sinners, people laden with iniquity,’ after the 
fashion of the prophets of Israel, always excepting their 
style, for that of Carlyle, when it was not entirely incom- 
prehensible, was more like the language of the Apocalypse. 
Carlyle, too, had his beast with seven heads and ten horns, 
which was Mechanism: “The huge demon of Mechanism 
smokes and thunders, panting at his great task, in all sections 
of English land; changing his shape like a very Proteus, and 
infallibly at every change of shape oversetting whole multi- 
tudes of workmen, and as if with the waving of his shadow 
from afar, hurling them asunder, this way and that, in their 
crowded march and course of work or traffic, so that the 
wisest no longer knows his whereabout.” ... Cash payment 
had grown to be the universal sole nexus of man to man.” .. . 
“Tt is said that society exists for the protection of property. 
And now what is thy property? That parchment title-deed, 
that purse thou buttonest in thy breeches pocket? Is that thy 
valuable property ? Unhappy brother, most poor insolvent 
brother. I, without parchment at all, with purse oftenest in 
the flaccid state, imponderous, which will not fling against 
the wind, have quite other property than that! I have the 
miraculous breath of life in me, breathed into my nostrils by 
Almighty God. I have affections, thought, a God-given capa- 
bility to be and do; rights, therefore—the right, for instance, 
to thy love if I love thee, to thy guidance if I obey thee... 
rights stretching high into Immensity, far into Eternity.” 
Opposing the spiritual nature and requirements of man to 
the materialist tendencies of a “mechanical age,” asserting 
the need of an ideal for every society which aspires to live, 


THIRD CHAP. | ATTEMPTS AT REACTION 65 





Carlyle urged his fellow-countrymen to imbue themselves with 
the sentiment of duty. The rest, that is to say the practical 
solution of the social crisis, will come of itself, as in the Gospel. 

The new conception of the State placidly adopting the doc 
trine of “ laissez-faire,’ was the principal obstacle to improve- 
ment_as well as the source of all the mischief in Carlyle’s 
eyes. It was a “false, heretical, and damnable principle, if 
ever aught was.” Society and the State have no right to re- 
main indifferent to the welfare of their members. The masses 
cannot live without being really led and governed. “ What 
are all popular commotions and maddest bellowings from 
Peterloo to the Place-de-Gréve itself? Bellowings, inarticu- 
late cries as of a dumb creature in rage and pain; to the ear 
of wisdom they are inarticulate prayers: Guide me, govern 
me! JI am mad and miserable and cannot guide myself. 
Surely, of all rights of man this right of the ignorant man to 
be guided by the wiser, to be, gently or forcibly, held in the 
true course by him, is the indisputablest. Recognized or not 
recognized a man has his superiors, a regular hierarchy above 
him; extending up, degree above degree, to heaven itself and 
God the Maker, who made His world not for anarchy but for 
rule and order.” Before cash payment had grown to be “the 
universal sole nexus of man to man,” the lower classes had a 
guide and a ruler in the aristocracy. “It was something other 
than money that the high then expected from the low, and 
could not live without getting from the low. Not as buyer 
and seller alone, of land or what else it might be, but in many 
senses still as soldier and captain, as clansman and head, as 
loyal subject and guiding king, was the low related to the 
high. With the supreme triumph of Cash, a changed time 
has entered; there must a changed aristocracy enter.” This 
aristocracy must not be an aristocracy of birth or privilege, 
but of the mind and the heart. How are we to distinguish 
it, by what token are we to recognize the real aristocrats in 
order to entrust them with the government ?—to this ques- 
tion Carlyle vouchsafes no answer. He contents himself with 
pouring out his sarcasm on the suffrage and giving vent to his 
contempt for and hatred of democracy. “The English people 
are used to suffrage; it is their panacea for all that goes wrong 
with them; they have a fixed idea of suffrage. ... House- 


VOL. I—F 











66 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





hold Suffrage, Ballot Question, ‘open’ or not: not things but 
shadows of things; Benthamee formulas; barren as the east- 
wind!” “The thing everywhere passionately clamoured for at 
present is Democracy,” what is called ‘self-government’ of the 
multitude by the multitude.” But “democracy is by the nature 
of it a self-cancelling business, and gives in the long run a net 


result of zero.” A strong man, a despot, yes, even a despot 
would be better e with the the anarchic 
multitude. 


The effect produced by Carlyle’s denunciations was immense. 
The English soul, with-its religious fibre and its reserve of 
repressed emotion, is never insensible to the appeals addressed 
to it; only they must be couched in a loud and forcible tone, 
and convey the impression that the person who makes them 
feels what he says. Appeals of this kind are more likely to 
find a hearing at certain seasons than at others. The state of 
mind produced by indifferentism — brought to a pitch either 
by the moral apathy which plunges men into a sort of torpor, 
or by the atrophy which attacks a community sunk in 
materialism or again by the scepticism which scatters to the 
winds what until lately was the general creed and rule of 
conduct — offers the most favourable psychological moment 
for thrilling the soul of a community, and of Englishmen 
in particular, with the accents of a commanding voice. The 
middle of the eighteenth century, in which Wesleyanism and 
Evangelicalism made their appearance, was an epoch of this 
kind, and so was the period from 1830-1840, which combined 
the two last-named aspects of social indifferentism. It was 
then that Carlyle stepped on the scene and produced a sort of 
nervous crisis in society, and especially among the younger 
members of it, who in their emotion repeated his own words: 
“Guide me, govern me! [Iam mad and miserable and cannot 





guide myself.” The new prophet, however, did not vouchsafe 
any_revelation or pONT-OUt the Fight path, but only continued 
to rouse the heart and stirthe inner man. THis appeals power- 
fully impressed the imagination, but hardly touched the reason, 


sand the nervous tension soon relaxed. To arrest the movement 

Bonn was drawing society into the current of individualism, 

‘it was after all not enough to ery in a voice of thunder that the 
Benthamite formulas were “barren as the east wind.” 





THIRD CHAP. | ATTEMPTS AT REACTION 67 





IV 


The only positive proposal which was made for restoring 
organic Ii lety came in_reform 
been particularly struck with the effects of the industrial ré- 
gime on the material existence of the working classes. They 
saw that the principle of free competition, so dear to political 
economy, increased the power of the strong and diminished 
that of the weak, with the result that the latter were at the 
mercy of the former, who knew neither justice nor pity ;' and 
they conceived the idea of combating competition on practical 
lines. The campaign was opened by Frederick Denison Maur- 
ice and Charles Kingsley, clergymen of the Established Church, 
but generous-hearted and large-minded men, to whom Chris- 
tianity was the equivalent of humanity. Their belief was that 
in the universe as it had issued from the hand of God selfishness 
was not the ruling principle, and that the spirit of devotion, 
self-sacrifice, and co-operation could alone reconcile the conflict 
of interests. Applying this idea to the economic system of the 
day, they_arrived at the conclusion that competition, which di- 
vides man and sets him against his fellow, must be opposed by 
association. In their. own country Robert Owen had already 
endeavoured to put the idea of industrial association into prac- 
tice. In France, also, the various socialistic schools had advo- 
cated this method? But “the Parisian ouwvrier so often forgets 
Him whose everlasting Fatherhood is the sole ground of all 
human Brotherhood, whose wise and loving will is the sole 
source of all perfect order and government.” Association, 
however, could never defeat competition without fraternal 
co-operation, without self-sacrifice, without subordination of 



































1“ Sweet competition! Heavenly maid! Nowadays hymned alike by penny- 
a-liners and philosophers as the ground of all society — the only real preserver 
of the earth! Why not of Heaven too? Perhaps there is competition among 
the angels, and Gabriel and Raphael have won their rank by doing the max- 
imum of worship on the minimum of grace! We shall know some day. In 
the meanwhile ‘ these are thy works, thou parent of all good!’ Man eating 
man, eaten by man, in every variety of degree and method! Why does not 
some enthusiastic political economist write an epic on the ‘Conservation of 
Cannibalism’?’’? (Cheap Clothes and Nasty, by Charles Kingsley.) 

2 The principal collaborator of Kingsley and Maurice, J. M. Ludlow, was 
well acquainted with the associations of French workmen and followed the 
movement of 1848 on the spot, after having passed his youth in France, where 
he was brought into close association with the doctrines of Buchez. 


68 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rFrest Part 





the 1 individual, and Christianity alone had the power to com- 
municate this motive force,—not dogmatic Christianity, but 
moral Christianity, the Christianity of Christ. Undertaking 
the emancipation of the poorer classes on the basis of Chris- 
tianity, Kingsley, Maurice, and their friends themselves ac- 
cepted the name of Christian Socialists. The association of 
Christianity and socialism seemed to them natural and imper- 
ative; in their eyes, the one was only the development and the 
expression of the other. The Bible was the book of the poor, 
of the downtrodden, the voice of God against the oppressor ; 
and the most sacred duty of the representatives of the Church 
was to raise the condition of the poor and not to preach to them 
obedience and resignation. The socialism of the Christian 
Socialists, however, had nothing revolutionary about it: “ We 
are teaching them .. . that true socialism, true liberty, brother- 
hood, and true equality (not the carnal, dead level equality of 
the Communist, but the spiritual equality of the Church idea, 
which gives every man an equal chance of developing and 
using God’s gifts, and rewards every man according to his work, 
without respect of persons) is only to be found in loyalty and 
obedience to Christ.”' Nor did the Christian Socialists call 
for the intervention of the State; they considered it a delusion 
and a snare to look to legislative enactments for social reform. 
To the Chartists, who demanded universal suffrage and the 
other “ points” from Parliament, they said: “Do you believe 
that the Charter will make you free? The Charter is good if 
the men who use it are good.” Society cannot be reconstructed 
by Acts of Parliament; everything depends upon man himself 
finding his path in God. Let all who are convinced of these 
truths unite, and they will be invincible. 

In this spirit the Christian Socialists founded the co-operative 
tailors’ association in London, in which wages were paid in 
proportion to the work done and in accordance with the capac- 
ity of the workman, but profits shared equally among all so 
long as each member had worked his best in the opinion of 
his comrades. The success of this association led to the for- 
mation of several others. Kingsley, Maurice, and their friends 
laboured devotedly for them, and were unremitting in their 











1 Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life, 3d edit. Lond. 
1877, I, 248. 


THIRD CHAP. | ATTEMPTS AT REACTION 69 





endeavours to propagate the idea of co-operation by means of 
lectures, pamphlets, newspapers, and works of fiction. Preju- 
dices and animosities arose against them on all sides, from 
the ranks of the Church, from the orthodox school of political 
economy, from the middle class, who were frightened at the 
word “socialism” and alarmed by the events of June, 1848, in 
Paris. They met every attack with unshaken courage and 
pursued their labours. They obtained the legal recognition 
of co-operative societies from Parliament. Associations multi- 
plied under the auspices of the central society managed by 
Kingsley and his friends. Their dream was to gradually 
cover the whole country with co-operative associations and 
make a reality of the principle inscribed at the head of their 
constitution :* “The human society is a body consisting of many 
members, not a collection of warring atoms.” The results 
obtained by the societies brought about a reaction in their 
favour. But before long they began to decline, especially 
those formed for the purposes of production, and they eventu- 
ally ended in a complete fiasco. The egoism inherent in 
human nature showed itself there as elsewhere; jealousy and 
rivalry broke out among the members; every one followed his 
own selfish impulses. The associations fell to pieces, some 
passing into the hands of a master spirit, others disappearing 
or splitting up into smaller bodies controlled by the detested 
principle of competition. 

The experiment made by the Christian Socialists forms a 
touching episode in the social history of England, which will 
never fail to evoke feelings of admiration and gratitude towards 
the men who did not despair of humanity. But in making 
association the sovereign and absolute principle of social organi- 
zation in despite of the selfish propensities of mankind, and in 
believing that Christianity, which had ceased to be the general 
creed, could supply the requisite motive power, they turned 
their backs upon the reality and doomed their plan of social 
synthesis to inevitable failure. 


The four movements of revolt against individualism or 
latitudinarianism which I have just described took place 








1 Article I of the constitution of the ‘‘ Association for promoting Indus- 
trial and Provident Societies.’’ 


— rr ™, 


70 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





about the same time.’ Proceeding from different sources 
and acting on different sections of society, they exhibited a 
close affinity with one another, not only in the aim which they 
pursued but in their spirit and methods of action, which con- 
ducted them to the same negative result. yun their_rise 


in a nation consi ost l and positive-min 


on the face of the earth, they were marked by a disregard of 
the reality of things and _a tendency in the direction of the 
absolute, as indeed was Benthamism against which they waged 
war. Inspired, not by pure reason like Bentham, but by im- 
agination and inward impulse, their adherents also ignored 
the primary factor of the problem before them: some held that 
salvation could only be found in a return to theocracy, although 
the emancipation of the religious conscience had become an 
accomplished fact; others proposed to reunite the separate 
atoms of society by means of feudal sentiment, although the 
feudal spirit had passed out of it; others launched into violent 
invective against democracy and proclaimed that it was a 
“zero” when it was already beginning to manifest its power; 
others again met the absolute principle of self-interest as the 
basis of social equilibrium with the no less absolute principle 
of self-sacrifice and abnegation in order to bring about the same 
equilibrium. One and all imagined that they were prescribing 
a idote for the malady, whereas they were only putting for- 
ward its antithesis. The synthesis was still to be discovered. 
Coming straight from the heart, the appeals of Carlyle, 
Kingsley, Dickens, who preached to the public in his novels, 
and numbers of others found an echo in the heart, and 
contributed in no small measure to raise the moral tone of 
society, to soften class prejudices and animosities, to fill the 
gulf between rich and poor; on the whole, they influenced 
t munity, but did c 
which had already taken the definite impress of indndualen: 


























1 The Oxford movement may be placed about 1833-1845; the Young Eng- 
land movement in the years 1837-1846; Carlyle’s action extended over the 
same period and went beyond it; and the Christian Socialist movement covers 
the years 1848-1853. 


FOURTH CHAPTER 
DEFINITIVE TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS 
I 


NEVERTHELESS the times were undoubtedly critical for the 
new conception of social order of which we have traced the 
origin and development; for the sentimental reaction pro- 
voked by the excesses of industrialism had left deep down in 
the heart one of those uneasy states of feeling which, how- 
ever vague, daily and hourly preys upon the mind, and pre- 
pares the way for new and it may be still undefined con- 
victions by undermining the old ones. Yet man is only too 
pleased to be reassured on the subject of his opinions, and a 
single word uttered with authority is often sufficient to dispel 
his doubts. The England of the years 1848-1860 received 
more than this; it obtained, or thought that it obtained, con- 
vincing proof that it was on the right path. The abolition of 
the duties on corn in 1846, and the other great free trade 
measure, the repeal of the Navigation Laws, passed in 1849, 
were followed by an unprecedented rise of commerce and 
industry." The enthusiasm produced by this upward move- 
ment of the economic forces of England infected even for- 








1 The exports doubled in five years; their total rose from 50 to 100 millions 
sterling a year. Profits increased with still more surprising rapidity. ‘‘In 
the ten years from 1842 to 1852 the taxable income of the country increased 
by 6 per cent, but in the eight years from 1853 to 1861 the income of the coun- 
try increased by 20 per cent. That is a fact so singular and striking as to 
seem almost incredible. . .. Besides the development of mechanical power 
and of locomotion, there is another cause which has been actively at work 
during the lifetime of our generation, and which especially belongs to the 
history of the last twenty years. I mean the wise legislation of Parliament 
which has sought for every opportunity of abolishing restrictions upon the 
application of capital and the exercise of industry and skill, and has made it _ 
a capital object of its policy to give full and free scope to the energies of the 
British nation. To this special cause appears especially to belong most of 
what is peculiar in the experiences of the period I have named so far as regards 
the increase of the national wealth’’ (Speech of Mr. Gladstone, Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, on the Budget of 1863, Hansard, CLXX, p. 244). 

71 


72 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





eigners,! and the prosperity which it diffused_in every section 
of the community, the working classes included, allayed_discon- 
tent and proved the value of a. system based on the unfettered 
play of interests. 

Theory in its turn supplied a doctrinal consecration of the 
facts. The Manchester School undertook to bring this home 
to the middle class. The “ Manchester men” belonged to the 
trading and manufacturing classes, and were by no means 
given to abstract ideas; but the economic aspect of the doctrine 
of “laissez-faire”? recommended it to them, and being under 
the impression that this maxim supplied a general solution of 
all practical wants they made it their exclusive theory of life. 
According to the Manchester School yprestrained_competition, 
the abstention of the State from all interference with the pro- 
duction and _distribution_of wealth, whether in favour of the 
rich or the poor, in other words free trade between citizens and 
nations, was in the nature of a divine law,” extending its bene- 
ficial influence to the material and moral sphere, tothe-intermal 

ife of a country and its international relations. By allowing 
every man to make the most lucrative use of his abilities, free 
competition would foster self-confidence, manly independence 
and self-respect in the individual. In directing human effort 
toward a pacific rivalry in the field of industry, free trade 
would ensure peace between the nations to the greater glory 
of civilization and its uninterrupted development.? Te policy 
























































1 Léon Faucher, in his Etudes sur l’ Angleterre, indulges in these transports 
as follows: ‘It is said that when Montbrun’s cuirassiers poured through the 
breach into the redoubt of Borodino, which the Russians had defended so des- 
perately, an English officer, who was looking on at the carnage as an amateur, 
was so carried away by his admiration that he forgot the horrors of the scene 
and the intensity of the struggle, and exclaimed, ‘ Well done, Frenchmen! 
this is a sight one only sees once in a lifetime.’ And we too may lay aside 
the rivalry of war and industry in order to heartily applaud this expansion 
of commercial genius which has exacted tribute from every nation. There is 
a sympathetic force in the great and beautiful which fascinates the mind in 
spite of itself, and makes man feel that he belongs to humanity first, and to 
his country afterwards”’ (Vol. I, p. 190). 

2 The ‘international law of the Almighty,’’ according to Cobden’s expres- 
sion. 

3 “Free trade! what is it? Why, breaking down the barriers that separate 
nations; those barriers behind which nestle the feelings of pride, revenge, 
hatred, and jealousy, which every now and then burst their bounds, and deluge 
whole countries with blood; those feelings which nourish the poison of war 
and conquest, which assert that without conquest we can have no trade, which 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 73 





ofStates was therefore clearly prescribed, and might be summed 
up in the words “peace, retrenchment, economy”: to live in 
peace with one’s neighbours; not to meddle with the affairs of 
other countries on the high-sounding pretext of national dignity 
and international rank ; not to crush the subject with taxation 
and to let him grow rich in his own way.! 

A philosophy of sordid manufacturers and shopkeepers, 
according to the opponents of the Manchester School, it was 
less narrow than people are generally inclined to admit in our 
day. Its exaggerated faith in the moral force of industry 
was shared by idealists and lofty dreamers like the Saint- 
Simonians, who looked on industry as a religious function and 
applied the word “cult” to its organization. “Everything by 
and for industry”? was Saint-Simon’s motto. In his view, as 
well as in that of his adherents, industry emphasized _ the law 
of progress and established the reign of work in place of idle- 
ness, privilege, and_brute force. It was therefore natural that 
the Manchester School should agree with the formulas of Saint- 
Simonism: “to each man according to his capacity, to each 
capacity according to its work;” “organization of industry 
and consequently no more war.” The two schools differed as 
to_the best method of organizing industry, the Saint-Simonians 
advocating universal association founded on love and the Man- 
chester School looking to universal competition; but the final 
result was intended_to be the same,—the happiness of man- 
kind. Full of love and good-will towards men in general, a 
sworn enemy of national chauvinism, waging war against aris- 
tocratic privileges and the “landlord spirit” in the political 
and social life of England, in order to set the free development 
of the individual on an impregnable basis, the Manchester 
School was, on the whole, far more of a democratic than a 
“bourgeois” movement.” Its doctrines were, in fact, the vul- 
































foster that love for conquest and dominion which sends forth your warrior 
chiefs to scatter devastation throughout other lands, and then calls them back 
that they may be enthroned securely in your passions, but only to harass and 
oppress you at home” (Cobden’s Speeches, edit. in one vol., by John Bright, 
Lond. 1878, p. 401). 

1“ T don’t feel sympathy for a great nation or those who desire the great- 
ness of a people by the vast extensions of empire. What I like to see is the 
growth, development, and elevation of the individual man’’ (Ibid. 467). 

2 Cobden writes (in a letter of the 5th of January, 1849, addressed to 
J. Combe): ‘‘It is this moral sentiment more than the £ s. d. view of the 


74 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





gate of the gospel of rationalist individualism for the use of 
traders and manufacturers." 


EF 


About the same time a fresh version of that gospel was put 
forth which seemed like a new revelation. From the lofty 
realms of thought came a message, delivered in a tone which 
seemed to brush aside all doubt for the future, that the inde- 
pendence of the individual in the State was an eternal verity 
reposing on the foundations of reason. The intellectual élite 
of the nation, who had been somewhat unsettled by Carlyle 
and others, recovered or rather were confirmed in their creed, 
and hailed the man to whom they were indebted for this relief, 
— John Stuart Mill. For more than a quarter of a century he 
kept them under the spell of his eloquence and logic, and 
having once acquired a hold on their mind he influenced it for 
many years to come. 

Mill’s doctrine was in _substanee the same _as Bentham’s. 
He started with the same utilitarian theory of life, and took 
his stand on the same method of observation and experience. 
In his eyes too man can only desire and pursue what is pleas- 
ant to him. But, he maintains in opposition to Bentham, to 
arrive at a correct estimate of pleasures they ought not to be 
valued only by their quantity, but by their quality as well. It is 
better to be a discontented man than a satisfied hog. The most 
perfect pleasures being those which are the most elevated in 
their nature, the path which the individual must take to attain 
his own happiness is that which leads to the welfare of the hu- 
man race. In this sense personal happiness can only be fully 








matter which impels me to undertake the advocacy of a reduction of our 
forces. It was a kindred sentiment (more than the material view of the ques- 
tion) which actuated me on the Corn Law and free trade question. It would 
enable me to die happy if I could feel the satisfaction of having in some 
degree contributed to the partial disarmament of the world’’ (Life ef Cobden, 
by J. Morley, II, 42). 

1“ Cobdenism was an intruder in the line of legitimate succession ’’ of the 
Radicalism which has been continually driving in an anti-“ laissez-faire ’’ direc- 
tion if we are to believe an English publicist of the ‘‘ Fabian socialist ’’ school 
(‘Socialism in English Politics,” by W. Clarke, Polit. Science Quarterly, 
N.Y., December, 1889). It is hardly necessary to point out the incorrectness 
of this assertion, which merely supplies a fresh instance of the mania which 
parvenus have for providing themselves with a line of ancestry. 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 75 





realized in the general welfare, and egoism to become a reality 
must identify itself with altruism. There is nothing impossi- 
ble in this; for a state of society is so natural, so indispensable, 
and so habitual to man that, by virtue of the psychological 
process of association of ideas peculiar to him, he cannot help 
linking the conception of his own destiny to that of society, 
and eventually feels a sort of intellectual inability to keep them 
apart. This association, of which man’s intelligence is at once 
the seat and the instrument, grows stronger and stronger in 
proportion as mankind progresses. “In the comparatively 
early state of human advancement in which we now live, a 
person cannot indeed feel that entireness of sympathy with all 
others, which would make any real discordance in the general 
direction of their conduct in life impossible.” But this state 
of civilization is only a step in the scale which mankind will 
ascend in its continual progress towards perfection. 

Pending the arrival of the millennium, in which the individ- 
ual will consider his own happiness as inseparable from the 
general welfare, what line of conduct should society pursue 
with regard to the individual? Society, replies Mill in his 
essay on Liberty, must leave the individual to himself in all 
that concerns him; it can only interfere with his freedom of 
action on the_ground of self-protection ;_ his own good, either 
physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant for interference ; 
“ over himself, aver his own body and mind, the individual 
js_sovereign.” The reasons for restricting individual liberty 
which might commend themselves to society can only be used 
as arguments for reasoning with and persuading the individ- 
ual, but not for compelling him. It is all the same whether 
the compulsion is moral and not material. Again, liberty does 
not consist only of political liberty, as we have been accustomed 
taunderstand it; that is only one aspect of liberty. Side—by 
side with the despotism of the State there is another tyranny 
of a not less oppressive kind, that_of opinion and of manners 
and customs, and it is from the undue pressure of their yoke 
just_as much as from the bondage of institutions that Mill 
wishes to deliver the individual. And he puts forward these 
demands not on the ground of abstract reason, of some cate- 
gorical imperative, but on that of interest. Just as the mere 
operation of satisfying the individual desire for pleasure ought 



























































76 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





to make for the general happiness, so liberty ought to be vouch- 
safed to the individual on account of its utility: “ Mankind are 
greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to 
themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to 
the rest.” 

If the independence of the individual determined by his 
interest in all that concerns him is the proper basis of the 
moral and social existence of man, there is at least equally 
good reason for treating it as the guiding principle of his 
material existence in the pursuit of wealth and its production 
and distribution. As an economist Mill, while he pays far 
more attention than his predecessors to society, to the whole 
community, and to the sacrifices which the individual owes to 
it, none the less sets up as a matter of principle that “letting 
alone should be the general practice: every departure from it, 
unless required by some great good, is a certain evil.” Mill 
considers competition as “ not pernicious, but useful and indis- 
pensable.” He is opposed to large properties, to entail, and 
generally to every institution in the economic sphere which 
is a hindrance to the individual and impedes the free play of 
activity in the humblest members of society. 

The principle which thus prescribes the relations of men in 
a state of society makes the political form of that society, the 
form of its government, a foregone conclusion. If “each is the 
anly safe guardian of his own rights and interests,” it_is 
clear that all ought to have a share in the sovereign power. If 
any members, whoever they may be, are excluded therefrom, 
their interests are left without the guarantee accorded to the 
others, and they themselves have less scope and encourage- 
ment for their energy and fewer opportunities for displaying 
their individuality. But ae the whole population tannat pee: 
sonally take part in public attairs, it follows that the ideal 
type of a perfect government is representative government. 

The method adopted by John Stuart Mill in arriving at these” 
conclusions, which bear the stamp of the purest Benthamism, 
was in reality precisely, as in Bentham’s case, that of abstract 
reasoning. The tendency of all men towards a happiness 
realized in the general welfare is simply a postulate foreign to 
all experience. The bridge of association of ideas which con- 
nects the happiness of the individual with the general welfare, 























FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 77 





however ingeniously constructed, is nevertheless entirely built 
of ideal pieces of timber, intended to support imaginary pas- 
sengers. In point of fact, perfect association of ideas implies 
a perfect intelligence. The appeal to a more advanced state 
of civilization, required for the complete realization of these 
hypotheses, is merely a fresh development of abstract reason- 
ing, speculating on man not as he is but as he may be some 
day. He will indubitably become so, according to Mill, thanks 
to education which is all-powerful and, like a seal with melting 
wax, can mould man to any shape required. But is this, again, 
an induction supplied by experience ? 

Not only in the domain of morals, but in the political sphere, 
which from one end to the other is pre-eminently that of the 
relative, Mill’s subject is invariably man, viewed through the 
optimist medium of infinite perfectibility, whom free discus- 
sion suffices to enlighten in the pursuit of his own happiness, 
and whose aptitude for seeking it gives him the right to inde- 
pendence in society. Composed, therefore, of individual inter- 
ests coexisting in a somewhat mechanical combination, but too 
numerous to be directly adjusted to each other, Mill’s political 
society ends by being a joint-stock company provided with an 
electoral machinery for its government, just as individual 
morality is brought by Mill under a mechanism of ideas which 
effects their association and “constitutes the moral faculty in 
man.” The better the association of ideas, the nearer man will 
‘be brought to his moral aim. In the same way, the more per- 
fect the. electoral machinery, the more perfect will be the gov- 
ernment of States. This is why Mill was overjoyed when the 
improvement of the electoral machinery proposed by Hare, the 
author of proportional representation, was brought to his notice. 
The very destiny of mankind was involved in his eyes: “ This 
great discovery,” he relates, “inspired me with new and more 
sanguine hopes respecting the prospects of human society.” 

( Thus John Stuart Mill, while rejecting the notion of right 






































as a basis for society, so as to avoid falling into the error of 
the French ideologists, none the less constructed a system 
ieee resembled theirs. It could hardly be otherwise, for in 
both cases the materials used were the same. Mill’s French 
predecessors in utilitarianism, the Helvetiuses and the Hol- 
bachs, who had also adopted personal interest as the social 


78 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





principle, arrived at the same political conclusions as Rousseau 
and his followers, from whom they were separated by a gulf 
in morals and psychology ; for both schools reasoned by way of 
deduction on “man,” on the human monad. The co-ordination 
of all particular interests with the general interest, demanded 
by the materialists, or the absorption of all individual wills 
into one general will, advocated by Jean Jacques, came to the 
same thing for the constitutional legislator, there being only 
one person in whom the “ particular interests ” and the “ indi- 
vidual wills” are vested, that is “man,” the human monad. 
Bentham, therefore, who operated on the same subject, and 
used the same method of abstract reasoning, found himself 
after all, in spite of his protests, in complete agreement with 
the French rationalists of the eighteenth century, and his dis- 
ciple, John Stuart Mill, who had criticised the “ geometric or 
abstract method” so sharply, was in his turn landed in the 
same result. 

While thus reproducing Bentham’s doctrine with absolute 
fidelity, Mill tempered it with certain elements which, without 
taking from it much of its essence and practical significance or 
remedying its defects, gave it an aspect which was of supreme 
importance for its success with the public. Taking the desire 
for pleasure as the starting-point of human actions, Mill imports 
into it the loftier standard of quality, justifies it by the “sense 
of dignity all human beings possess in one form or other,” and 
ends by placing the criterion of utilitarian morality not, 
like Bentham, in the agent’s own greatest happiness, but in 
the greatest amount of happiness altogether, and this not be- 
cause the general welfare is the concomitant of the welfare of 
the individual, because there is a material identity between 
them, so that man has only to follow his inclination and har- 
mony will come of itself, but because man himself enthrones 
this harmony in his own intelligence, because he creates the 
association of the individual’s happiness with the general wel- 
fare in his own mind. 

Inheriting all the doctrines of individualist political economy, 
Mill inaugurates his succession by throwing the doors wide 
open to his opponents, without, however, allowing them to take 
up their abode within the precincts; he tones down the strict- 
ness of the principle of “laissez-faire”; he goes beyond all 


FOURTH CHAP.]| TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 79 





his predecessors in admitting exceptions to the dogma of the 
orthodox economists, and comes forward himself as the expo- 
nent of them. He even goes so far as to embrace the heresy 
which denies the sanctity of property; he declines to recognize 
it in the case of land, but admits it spontaneously in the 
case of income derived from labour and from capital; the 
rent of land, the unearned increment of the soil, due to social 
causes independent of man, ought, according to Mill, to be used 
for the good of the community, whereas income derived from 
labour and capital is created by man’s efforts and is a mani- 
festation of human personality. Finally, as a crowning 
indulgence to his adversaries, the socialists, he admits that 
private property is only one of the possible types of distri- 
bution of wealth, and that it may disappear some day or 
other. 

Mill is more uncompromising in regard to the ideal form of 
government; for every people that has passed the stage of 
infancy representative democracy is the best possible govern- 
ment, but he himself admits its “infirmities and dangers,” and 
tries to discover remedies for them. 

In every department, in politics, in morals, in political 
economy, Mill makes extensive concessions to his adversaries, 
and by these very inconsistencies in his doctrine he accentuates 
its success; he not only conveys to the public the seductive 
impression of impartiality and sincerity, of boldness and 
openness of mind, but he allays discontent and silences the 
misgivings aroused by the uncompromising character of Ben- 
tham’s doctrine, and wins the sympathy which was being 
attracted towards his opponents. 

In_spite of all the concessions and advances made by Mill, 
which were more in the nature of embroidery on the surface of 
the Benthamite pattern, his criterion in the moral, social, and 
political sphere still remained the individual; all social and 

















political relations are viewed by Mill with reference to_their 
power of acting on the individual ;1 but the interest of the indi- 


1 The individual pursues the general welfare in his own happiness, because 
this is the path which will conduct him to an ‘‘ ideal nobility of will and con- 
duct.’’ Liberty ought to be the leading principle in society, for ‘it is only 
the cultivation of individuality which produces or can produce well-devel- 
oped human beings.’? And when Mill advocates the intervention of the State, 
as for instance to enforce on parents the obligation of educating their chil- 





80 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [Frrst parr 





‘vidual is presented in a new light, far more attractive than 
Bentham’s, the taint of selfishness which clung to it disappears, 
and Bentham’s rude fetish’ appears henceforth encircled with 
a halo of idealism. 

The transformation thus wrought in the body of the doctrine 
is still further set off by a charm peculiar to the writer, by a 
spirit glowing with generous affection for the masses, for 
obscure and humble folk. All Mill’s writings are permeated 
by a deep sympathy for the working classes, and an intense 
desire to raise them in the material and the moral scale. As 
the Bible was the book of the poor and oppressed in the eyes 
of the Christian Socialists, so under Mill’s pen political economy 
became the worker’s book, instead of being a cold and unre- 
lenting exposition of “general laws,” under which the weak 
were to be crushed as under the car of Juggernaut. LEvery- 
where between the lines of Mill’s writings, under the smooth 
and tranquil surface of his logic, there is the same sympathetic 
and loving spirit flowing like a strong current. The imagina- 
tion is at home in them as well as the reason. The treatise 


on Utilitarianism_may be called the philosophic hymn of a 


mystery resembling the Christian Sacrament of Transubstan- 














dren, it is with a view to the final result; for ‘‘ instruction, when it is really 
such ... strengthens as well as enlarges the active faculties: in whatever 
manner acquired, its effect on the mind is favorable to the spirit of indepen- 
dence.’”’ Mill allows unrestricted competition in the economic sphere, because 
“‘to be protected against competition is to be protected in idleness, in mental 
dullness.’? He condemns the aristocratic form of property because it checks 
the expansion of individuality; and he extols the system of small landed 
properties because it makes men, and inspires the peasant proprietor with 
the consciousness that ‘‘he is a free human being, and not perpetually a 
child, which seems to be the approved condition of the labouring classes 
according to the prevailing philanthropy.’’ The various forms of government 
are appraised by the same standard. ‘‘ The first question in respect to any 
political institution is, How far they tend to foster in the members of the 
community the various desirable qualities, moral and intellectual.’’ The 
answer to this question is decisive as to the merits of democracy. Under 
a system of absolute government what sort of human beings can be formed, 
in what way can their faculties of reflection and action be developed? ‘‘ The 
maximum of the invigorating effect of freedom upon the character is only 
obtained, when the person acted on either is, or is looking forward to becom- 
ing a citizen as fully privileged as any other.” 

1“ No subtlety, no metaphysics; no need to consult Plato or Aristotle. 
Pain and pleasure are felt as such by every man, by the peasant as well as 
the monarch, by the unlearned man as well as the philosopher’’ (quoted 
above, p. 34). 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 81 





tiation: just as the Christian communicates with Christ, with 
His soul and His godhead by means of the elements of bread 
and wine which satisfy the gross bodily appetites, so man fol- 
lowing his own interests ends, by means of the association of 
ideas, in realizing the general happiness, the welfare of man- 
kind. The essay on Liberty is another hymn, and, like the 
Song of Solomon, an anthem of love, in which the lover and 
his beloved are man and freedom of thought, and certainly the 
attractions of this freedom are not set forth with less eloquence 
in Mill’s syllogisms than are the charms of the Shulamite in 
the stanzas of the royal poet. But to enjoy the happiness 
proffered by Mill there is no need of Christian grace or of the 
favour of the daughter of Jerusalem; it is sufficient to be man. 


Mill invariably speaks as a cosmopolite; his_subject is “man 
and his fellows,” “man,” and “mankind.” 


The entire formula of the French Revolution — Liberty, 
Equality, and Fraternity — was expressed by Mill’s writings, 
but in the old English fashion, without pathetic gestures, or 
loud tones, or sentimental outpourings; simply arguments 
presented with all the semblance of scientific exactness, lan- 
guage remarkable for lucidity and distinctness, and with noth- 
ing metaphysical about it; general propositions always linked 
to reflections taken from the sphere of reality and plentifully 
supported by facts, and a constant attention to practical con- 
siderations, to results. In a society which prides itself, or at 
all events used to pride itself, on controlling its emotions by 
reason, and verifying reason by experience, Mill’s language 
proved the best conductor of the new social and political fluid. 
The feelings awakened by Carlyle, Dickens, and others were 
led by Mill into the channels of logic and science. This was 
his great achievement, and this was what gave him his power 
over opinion, and in particular his influence with the rising 
generation, which combines the enthusiasm of the intellect and 
of the heart, or, to put it in another way, thinks it is following 
reason while it is really only obeying its emotional impulses. 
Mill sustained and exalted its impulses by providing food for 
its reason, and vice versa. “The younger generation,” as a 
contemporary observer remarks, “were a good deal stirred by 
Carlyle; but Carlyle, after all, woke people up, and made them 
look out of the window to see what was the matter, after which 

NOL si—— 


82 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





most of them went to bed again and slept comfortably. His 
cries were rather too inarticulate to furnish anything like a new 
gospel, and he never took hold of the intellectual class. But Mill 
did.”! With induction for his sail, and catching the humani- 
tarian_breeze which was “moving upon the face o t e waters,” 
he e brought abstract rationalism with faith in reason and confi- 
dence in theory safely to their moorings, and he made English 
society renew its alliance with radical individualism, thus fore- 
ing it still further_in the direction whither this individualism 
was_tending, that is, towards disbelief in the traditional order 
of things and a general levelling of political and social con- 
ditions. 






































III 


Everything conspired to give an impulse to this intellectual 
movement. Contemporary thought produced no doctrines to 
compete with those of Mill, and individualism was left without 

rival i in of speculation. The only opposition 
which it encountered came from sentimentalism in its various 
aspects, ecclesiastical, feudal, and social. The weapons used 
by the latter had a sharper edge, but were too short to reach 
its powerful adversary, entrenched behind a rampart of ideas 
and facts. Slightly touched, but in no way overcome by these 
appeals to sentiment, public opinion barely paid them an occa- 
sional tribute, of which the factory legislation was the most 
important practical manifestation. These emotional outbreaks 
and legislative enactments were only exceptions confirming the 
rule. The English mind was engrossed by individualism, and 
remained inaccessible to all other teaching for years to come. 
Peofginan diclilasions and terrible shocks produced by events 


in the outer world were required to make English society probe 


its conscience afresh.” 
Seen, ee 



































1 English correspondent of the New York Nation, 1873, Vol. 16, p. 350. 

2It is not till after 1868, when the early years of the official reign of 
Liberalism have disappointed the sanguine hopes of radical enthusiasm which 
preceded them, — it is not till after the war of 1870 that John Stuart Mill’s 
political doctrines and the philosophy of individualism are seriously disputed, 
and ‘‘the paltry commonplaces (of liberty, equality, and fraternity), which 
are so popular amongst us”’ (in England), are contrasted with ‘‘ the well- 
regulated, disciplined energy which planted the German flags on the walls of 
Paris.’’ This is the way in which Sir James Stephen, who made the first vigor- 
ous attack on Mill in his Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (Lond. 1873), 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 83 





Enjoying a monopoly in the province of thought, individ- 
ualism was no less free from counteracting forces in the prac- 
tical sphere. The latter were suppressed or prevented from 
operating by the lukewarmness which characterized public life 
after the triumph of the middle class and by the want of polit- 
ical education in the country. Instead of impeding the rise of 
rationalist individualism, as might be supposed at the first blush, 
this state of things rather assisted it than otherwise: the moral 
vacuum which it created supplied a field for abstract ideas. 

The political education of the masses in fact was not in-a 
much more advanced condition than it had been before the 
Reform Bill. While displaying more intelligence and gener- 
osity in this respect than the aristocracy, the middle class 
which attained power after 1832 did not modify the general 
aspect of things. From the second quarter of the century pri- 
vate initiative no doubt made laudable efforts to diffuse instruc- 
tion among adults by means of Mechanics’ Institutes and other 
agencies for organizing classes and lectures as well as by cheap 
publications. But when they were not paralyzed by the clergy 
or the orthodox folk whom it stirred up, these efforts missed 
their mark in two ways: they did not reach the mechanics and 
the masses for whom they were destined, it was the lower 
middle class alone which benefited by them; besides this the 
teaching provided was often too technical, too utilitarian, with 
too slight an admixture of real mental culture and no political 
instruction at all. As for the latter, there was no one anxious 
to promote it, nor was the ground sufficiently prepared for it 
by general instruction. In 1807, when the Whitbread Bill, 
which proposed to establish a system of popular instruction, 
was being debated, the least reactionary of its opponents said: 
“The increase of this sort of introduction to knowledge would 
only tend to make the people study politics and lay them open 
to the arts of designing men.”? The Whigs, who filled the 
political stage after 1832, did not propound maxims of this 
kind, but they certainly were not disinclined to believe in the 
mischief which would result if the people took to “studying 


comments on his own book in a letter to his German translator (published in 
the German edition Die Schlagwiérter Freiheit, Gleichheit, Briiderlichkeit in 
ihrer ethischen, socialen, und politischen Anwendung, Berlin, 1874). 

1 Hansard, TX, 548, Speech of Mr. Windham. 


84 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rrrst part 





politics.” Several of them, it is true, talked from time to time 
of the political education of the masses,’ but took scarcely any 
steps to carry out the idea.? A small élite of workingmen in 
the towns succeeded, by dint of individual energy, in reaching 
the tree of knowledge, from which they hastily plucked the 
unripe fruit of general ideas and flung them at the governing 
classes, whose rule was attended by so much misery among the 
people: “ All men are born free ” — “God has given men equal 
liberties and equal rights” — “We demand justice before 
charity.”? The masses had no opportunity of acquiring even 
elementary knowledge. There were not many schools in the 
country, and they were attached to the Churches or kept 
by private individuals. The State paid as good as no heed 
to public instruction; its intervention was confined to grants 
amounting to £20,000 a year, since the year 1833. The few 
schools which existed were in a wretched state, both as regards 
housing and teaching.* Public instruction did not form part 


1Lord Brougham said: ‘‘Why should not political, as well as all other 
works, be published in a cheap form, and in Numbers? ... Itis highly use- 
ful to the community that the true principles of the constitution, ecclesiastical 
and civil, should be well understood by every man who lives under it ’’? (Prac- 
tical Observations upon the Education of the People, Lond. 1825, pp. 4, 5). 
Thirty years afterwards Lord Aberdeen, alarmed at the dictatorial power 
assumed by the Press over the public, returned to the charge: ‘‘ We must 
educate by all the means in our power, and we shall be able to trust the 
people more safely with their own concerns ”’ (Letter of the 6th of January, 
1855, to Croker, Croker Papers, III, 350). Just as twelve years later, Robert 
Lowe, alarmed in his turn by the admission of the urban populations to polit- 
ical power, exclaimed: ‘‘ We must educate our masters.”’ 

2 Owing to Lord Brougham’s efforts, assisted by leading Whigs, a great 
“Society for the Propagation of Useful Knowledge’”’ was founded, for the 
publication and circulation of short popular treatises. The numerous vol- 
umes which it published related to physics, chemistry, mechanics, astronomy, 
but not to politics, past or present, ‘“‘on which it was impossible to touch 
without provoking angry discussion.’’ A long time afterwards and solely at 
the request of its president, Brougham, it decided to bring out a political 
series, inaugurated by a work of Lord Brougham himself. This was his 
Political Philosophy (Lond. 1842), which, apart from the intrinsic value of 
the book, presents a curious example of an error common to many educators 
of the lower classes, which consists in addressing them as if they had received 
a literary training, with the result that the teaching is entirely lost upon them. 
The “‘ political series ’’ did not get beyond this work. 

3 These were the mottoes on the banner under which the Chartist procession 
marched to Parliament with the monster petition. 

4 The following is taken from a description of the state of the elementary 
schools about the year 1840: ‘‘A minimum education has been given at a 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 85 





of the traditions of the Tory party. The Whig party, who 
claimed to be the friend of the people and of enlightenment, 
was largely composed for the most part of Nonconformists, 
divided into rival sects. Not being able to agree as to what 
religious education should be given, that is to say, whether the 
Bible should be read with or without commentary, they pre- 
ferred not to open any schools at all. Here and there one or 
two public men, who were not blinded by party passion and 
spite, were deeply pained by this state of things, but their isola- 
tion rendered them powerless. “The greatest of all causes,” 
exclaimed Richard Cobden, “has no locus standi in Parlia- 
ment.”+ A few years afterwards, when the Liberal party was 
again agitating for the extension of the suffrage, Cobden, who 
was in favour of a radical reform, wondered what would be the 
result in view of the ignorance of the masses. ‘“ Without the 
cordial sympathy and the co-operation of the masses, our elec- 
toral system will become as soulless a thing as that which lately 
existed in France.” ? 

Nor was the practical school for learning this co-operation, 
that supplied by institutions, within the reach of the general 
public or frequented by those who had access to it. The old 
local self-government, as we have seen, had been taken to pieces 
and had not been reconstructed or completely recast. The middle 
class rather turned away from public life. Not only munici- 


minimum cost. Babies of eight and ten years old were set to teach other 
babies of the same age; . .. writing-desks were few, scanty, and fixed to 
the walls.... Of apparatus there was little but a few slates; of maps there 
was perhaps one, a meagre map of Palestine; of books there were scarcely 
any but the Holy Bible. In the Holy Bible used as a primer, little children 
were drilled in spelling and reading; and their arithmetic was too often drawn 
from the same source. ... In order to give the children a reverence for 
sacred things, the sums set were drawn from historical statements of numbers 
in the Holy Scriptures. ‘There were 12 patriarchs, 12 apostles, and 4 evan- 
gelists; add the patriarchs and evangelists together; subtract the apostles; 
what is the remainder?’ ‘Solomon had so many wives and so many concu- 
bines ; add the concubines to the wives, and state the result.’... The build- 
ings were low, thin, dingy, ill-drained, often without means of warming, often 
without proper conveniences; with no furniture but a teacher’s desk, a few 
rickety forms, a rod, a cane, and a fool’s cap. The floor was almost invari- 
ably of brick, the worst kind of floor’’ (Address on National Education by 
Harry Chester, quoted in J. Hole’s ‘‘Light ! more Light !’’ On the present state 
of education amongst the working classes of Leeds. Lond. 1860). 

1 Letter from Cobden to J. Combe, dated Nov. 5, 1850 (Morley’s Life, Il, 84). 

2 Letter from Cobden to John Bright, dated Nov. 9, 1853 (Ibid. p. 147). 


86 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





pal business, but parliamentary elections, had little interest for 
them. This was particularly the case with the higher strata 
of the new ruling class, —the_upper middle class. Absten- 
tion from voting, which was cag on y common in the constituen- 
cies, increased in proportion to the wealth of the voters. 
“They ” (the rich), we read in an official inquiry, “think it 
beneath their dignity to go and vote.”’ And why should they 
trouble their heads? Did not the Palmerston Ministry, under 
which parties were grouped in a sort of truce, provide them 
with “a strong government” and “a safe government,” which 
would take care not to start schemes of reform or raise other 
awkward questions worthy of philosophers and theorists? To 
prevent the calm degenerating into stagnation, there was the 
foreign policy of Palmerston, who had long become a passed 
master in the art of addressing arrogant challenges to neigh- 
bouring countries and tyrannizing over the weak. There was 
enough to stir the blood of the Briton and flatter “the egre- 
gious vanity of the beast,’ as Cobden said. With the refrain 
of Civis Romanus sum resounding in their ears, the ruling 
classes of England sat quietly under their vines and their fig- 
trees. The House of Commons enjoyed a calm and peaceable 
existence. Nothing was taken tragically or seriously in it, as 
befits an assembly of well-bred people, of “gentlemen,” of 
whom Palmerston was the perfect type and model. The 
debates led to no loss of temper, and very often the sittings 
came to an end for want of a quorum; “counting out has now 
become a regular institution,” said Sir W. Molesworth in 1862. 
Even the advanced Radicals laid down their arms and waited 
for the death of Palmerston, who appeared to incarnate in his 
person the England of the past and in whom it seemed to 
survive itself. 








IV 


These intervals of apathy and indifference in the life of a 
nation_are the most favourable of all for “philosophers and 
theorists,’ who fill the unoccupied space, which they fin 
before them, with their philosophy and their theories, what- 




















1 From the evidence of an election agent before a committee of the House 
of Lords (Blue Books, 1860, Reports from Committees, XII, 174). Other evi- 
dence to the same effect was given before the committee (bid. pp. 72, 240). 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 87 


ever the intrinsic value_of these may be; the horror vacui is 
Piao tie ot leon nar or aS pied world. Just 
as in the latter the force of penetration of a body is in the 
direct ratio of its mass, and in the inverse ratio of the con- 
sistency of the substance which it enters; so the greater the 
weakness of the mind the greater the facility with which it 
admits an idea, and the more comprehensive the idea the more 
easily it takes possession of the mind. Accordingly in the 
social sphere the less firmness there is in the public mind and 
the less intensity in public life, the more society is exposed to 
the invasion of general ideas, provided that there is sufficient 
motive force behind them. This force is often created by the 
very condition of stagnation which it is about to attack; for 
want of action the élite of the nation turns to the world of 
thought, and there prepares and gathers the explosive material 
- destined to produce a more or less marked upheaval of society. 
This was the very process at work in England during the 
years 1846-1865, and under particularly favourable conditions. 
Although the boundaries of the political system had been con- 
siderably extended since 1802, although it occupied a much 
larger area, public spirit, as we have seen, had not expanded 























in proportion. ‘Te result was that with a greater number 
Of persons brought into political life, there was relatively 
less political activity than in the former period. The State 
was no longer uppermost in the thoughts of society. The 
sphere of social influence covered by politics was contracting, 
and at the same time the importance of the principles at stake 
in political warfare, as well as its emotional attraction, dwin- 
dled in proportion as the grave questions which had exercised 
the minds of succeeding generations, such as parliamentary 
reform, religious liberty, and free trade, were disposed of. 
The élite of the community, relieved so to speak of their 
functions, had recourse to thought. Consequently when 
John Stuart Mill entered the field with his great writ- 
ings, he found a far more numerous public to listen to and 
applaud him than the Philosophical Radicals of five-and- 
twenty or thirty years back could have addressed. A Young 


England party was in process of formation, but different to 
that imagined by Disraeli, with aspirations turned not towards 

















the past but towards the future, with faith in the vivifying 


88 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





power, not of social traditions, but_of the “Reason of Man,” 

which really andiegies the “landmarks of human action and 
human progress.” A new spirit passed over the old Univer- 
sities, their medizeval atmosphere underwent a change, the 
outer air of philosophy, of criticism, of true science entered 
by their Gothic windows. Oxford, till lately the stronghold 
of orthodoxy, the home of Tractarianism, became a hot-bed 
for the new ideas. Young men of good family were among 
their most zealous devotees. The influence of philosophy 
and of the new science of sociology readily accepted as such 
was reinforced by natural science with its methods of exact 
observation and uncompromising analysis, which rejected 
every authority and every idea incapable of making good 
its title, and of allowing it to be verified at any moment 
before the permanent tribunal of reason. John Stuart 
Mill and Professor Goldwin Smith, Darwin and Huxley, 
Herbert Spencer, who was on the threshold of his great philo- 
sophical career, Buckle, and many other thinkers of less emi- 
nence conjointly exercised an intellectual dictatorship over 
English society. Foreign influences, notably Positivism and 
its religion of humanity, added their quota. Each working in 
his own sphere, they all helped to discredit the past, to sub- 
stitute the power of reason for that of tradition, to diffuse 
enthusiasm for ideas with belief in a continual advance towards 
a better state of things, and in the final triumph of the cause 
of progress in spite of the obstacles which tend to block its 
path. The new spirit of investigation and criticism invaded 
regions which seemed forever closed to it, as for instance 
that of theology. Members of the University, Doctors of 
Divinity, clergymen of the Established Church, Bishops even 
applied the canons of scientific criticism to the Scriptures as 
to any other book. In vain did scandalized orthodoxy protest 
and call for punishment of the destroyers of the faith, the 
representatives of the secular power itself either refused to 
interfere or treated them with sarcasm and contempt.' Very 











1 The case which made the most stir in this respect was that of the collec- 
tion of Essays and Reviews, written by several clerical and lay members of 
the University of Oxford. The freedom and broad-mindedness of their the- 
ology created a sensation. The champions of orthodoxy took legal proceed- 
ings against some of these writers in the ecclesiastical courts, but were defeated 
on appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Eventually they 


FouRTH cHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 89 





soon nothing was safe from doubt. Every principle was im- 
pugned, every subject discussed. British phlegm invested this 
intellectual process with something of the impassive sternness 
which attends the operations of the dissecting-room. The 
existence of God was put to the vote without fuss and without 
animation. The spirit of tolerance appeared in society to an 
extent hitherto unknown; the boldest flights of thought, the 
most daring speculations of the intellect, ranged unmolested. 
For the bulk of society this freedom was attributable far more 
to the decay of the old faith than to the progress of the new 
one, as is generally the case in situations of this kind, which 
are characterized by a sort of moral truce of God, due not 
so much to the elevation as to the relaxation of the public 
mind. In England after the year 1855, as in France a century 
before, the doubt and negation produced by the earnest medi- 
tations and settled convictions of a small group of leading 
spirits spread over society like a noxious vapour, blighting 
the old creeds which had lost the vivifying principle of true 
faith. Lacking the strength of mind to discard its old ideas 
and prejudices, and without the force of character to uphold 
them, society let them slumber on, while assuming to out- 
ward appearances an air of conventional indifference. The 
facetious and frivolous tone of which Palmerston set the 
fashion in Parliament and which extended outside its 
walls, contributed to that atmosphere of amiable scepticism 
which constitutes the charm of periods of transition, and 
which gave rise to Talleyrand’s saying: “Celui qui n’a pas 


succeeded in getting the book condemned by Convocation, the representative 
assembly of the Established Church. The decisions of Convocation being 
subject to the approval of the Crown, the Government was interrogated in the 
House of Lords as to the course which they proposed to pursue. The Lord 
Chancellor, who is the ‘‘ keeper of the King’s conscience,’ of the conscience 
of the ‘‘defender of the faith,’’ replied that the excommunication launched 
by Convocation did not so much as deserve the attention of the Government. 
‘There are three modes,”’ he explained, ‘‘ of dealing with Convocation when 
it is permitted to come into action and transact real business. The first is, 
while they are harmlessly busy, to take no notice of their proceedings; the 
second is, when they seem likely to get into mischief, to prorogue and put an 
end to their proceedings; and the third, when they have done something 
clearly beyond their powers, is to bring them before a court of justice and 
punish them.’’ The ‘‘synodical condemnation”’ of a work, pronounced by 
Convocation, appeared to the Lord Chancellor to belong to the category of 
harmless acts of which no notice need be taken. 


90 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





vécu dans les derniéres années de l’ancien régime n’a pas 
connu la douceur de vivre.” 

The fashionable scepticism which invaded_society and the 
stagnation arising trom the decrepitude of political_parties 
weakened the leading section of the ruling classes just as the 
increase of wealth enervated the rank and file. While their 
strength of character departed and their capacity for resistance 
declined, the tide of radicalism continued to mount. The un- 
toward events: and the disappointments of the Crimean War 
provoked a series of attacks on the existing régime and the 
spirit which it embodied. The public demanded that full light 
should be thrown on the military administration, that the 
reign of aristocratic favouritism should come to an end, and 
that personal merit, irrespective of birth, should be recognized 
as the sole qualification for public honours and appointments. 
The language of the Press became unusually violent; it attacked 
everything and everybody in the most unsparing manner.! The 
repeal of the paper duties, in 1860, gave a considerable impulse 
to the growth of the cheap Press and at the same time to 
the spirit of opposition and criticism. Literature reflected the 
same tendency. “It is incontestable,” notes Montalembert, 
“that bitter and violent abuse of aristocratic ideas and habits 
is gradually becoming the dominant note in political discussion 
and historical study.”? “We must not disguise the fact,” 
insists the same observer, “that a whole literary and political 
school is endeavouring to imbue the English people with a 
dislike for their time-honoured institutions and with a desire 
to ape Continental democracy.” ® 

Tinged as they are with bitterness, these impressions of the 
famous Catholic champion none the less faithfully reflect the 
intellectual movement of the time. A feeling entered men’s 
minds, like a thorn penetrating the flesh, that England was far 
behind other nations, that from head to foot there was some- 
thing antiquated and mouldy about her. It made no difference 
that this or that old institution was working well, expediency 
































1 Greville, alarmed at the attitude of the Press, exclaims: ‘‘ The Press, 
with the Times at its head, is striving to throw everything into confusion. 

. They diffuse through the country a mass of inflammatory matter” 
(Memoirs, VII, 247). 

2 De l'avenir politique de l’ Angleterre, Paris, 1856, p. 51. 

8 Ibid. p. 56. 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 91 





was no longer the national divinity to whom exclusive honours 
were paid, the people had run after “strange gods,” and their 
eyes were opened to the perception of anomalies. A new tone 
became observable in the language of politics. At one time, 
under the influence of the scientific methods of the day, 
the jargon of science was applied to politics. At another 
time, writers in the Press and speakers at public meetings 
affected the style of natural right. “Men of Birmingham, if 
I can call you men, who do not possess the suffrage,” were the 
words with which John Bright began one of his speeches in 
1859. Mr. Gladstone himself, who was at that time a sort of 
hostage of the advanced Liberals in the Palmerston Ministry, 
spoke in similar terms: “ Every person,” he declared, in 1863, 
“not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of per- 
sonal unfitness or political danger, is morally entitled to come 
within the pale of the Constitution.” Three years afterwards, 
he was more outspoken in combating those who opposed the 
grant of the suffrage to the working classes: “They are our 
fellow-Christians, and of the same flesh and blood as ourselves.” 
fending their admission into the inner political life of 
England, the ideas of Radical individualism penetrated its 
approaches; they found their way into colonial government 
and international relations. The colonies, it was asserted, 
were entitled to manage their own affairs; and all that 
England had to do, for her own honour and their advan- 
tage, was to recognize their individuality, and treat them as 
responsible communities. People even went so far as to contest 
England’s right to her possessions beyond the seas, on the 
ground that she had acquired them by violence, by fraud, and 
by crimes against justice and humanity. These ideas, so closely 
related to the doctrines of the Manchester School, especially 
as regards their premises, were propagated with the greatest 
energy by philosophical Radicals, and especially by Goldwin 
Smith, who at that time almost rivalled John Stuart Mill in 
influence on the rising generation. They created quite a cur- 
rent of opinion, and made their power felt by the Government. 
Qne colony after another received autonomy on the pattern of 
the system of responsible government introduced for the first 
time into Canada in 1847. The same individualist principle, 
transported into the international sphere under the name of 





























92 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rirst part 





the principle of nationalities, made the English Government 
take a step which was without precedent in British annals: it 
restored the Ionian Islands to Greece spontaneously and with- 
out compensation. <A little more, and Gibraltar would have 
been sacrificed on the same altar. 

In their heart of hearts, the ruling classes clung to their 
old opinions, which occasionally showed themselves in the 
crudest form. Thus, when civil war broke out in the United 
States, they took the side of the slave-holding South against 
the North, and, believing that the American Republic was 
doomed, were overjoyed at the idea that democracy had thus, 
as they thought, proved its impotence. This attitude of the 
ruling classes, as well as the general state of dull immobility 
in which the political world gathered round Palmerston re- 
mained, far from cooling the radical ardour of the rising gen- 
eration, gave it an additional stimulus. The idea prevailed 
that it was impossible to strike too hard in order to overcome 
this inert mass, upheld by aristocratic tradition and sentiment, 
and fed by a spirit of privilege and selfish domination, and that 
it was therefore useless to count the blows, or select the points 
suitable for attack. Most of the English institutions, thought 
the Radicals, were fit only for destruction. They became con- 
firmed in this view, and indulged in anticipations of the most 
sanguine kind, all the more easily because it was not necessary 
to begin the process of demolition at once, or calculate the 
force of resistance which might have to be encountered. 
Palmerston’s immense prestige in Parliament and in the 
country and his dogged opposition to reform alone sufficed to 
render all attempt at change abortive. The popular minister 
having become, so to speak, the embodiment of the existing 
order of things, the reformers, in their turn, ended by making 
Palmerston the incarnation of all the obstacles which blocked 
their path. 


Vv 


Consequently when_Palmerston died in 1865 the advanced 
school thought that their time had come, and that now, at last, 
the flood-gates of progress could be opened. But which Aine 
tion was progress to take? How were they to set about realiz- 














FOURTH cHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 98 





ing the new social and political ideal? In point of fact, there 
was more enthusiasm than clearness of views on the subject of 
the new ideals and the mode of converting them into practice. 
Since the days of the Chartists, who naively advocated uni- 
versal suffrage as a remedy for the sufferings of the people, 
advanced opinion was bent on the extension of the parlia- 
mentary franchise. Radical enthusiasm, without looking fur- 
ther afield, now took up this question and devoted all its 
energies to it. The anti-reforming tendencies of the ruling 
classes were the same as ever; they were still opposed to 
all fresh extension of the suffrage. At the general election 
which had just been held (in 1865) they had returned much 
the same men to Parliament. The people themselves were 
indifferent ; except in the industrial centres of the north there 
was now none of the enthusiasm which animated the masses in 
1832. But beneath the surface a profound change had taken 
place. Reforming zeal, confined for years to the sphere 
of speculation, had acquired consistency, and now that the 
period of grace seemed to have expired with Palmerston’s 
death, it demanded payment of its account. The ruling classes, 
who were sunk in stagnation, had no resistance to offer; they 
were without ideas, without strong convictions, and consequently 
without strength. Resistance pure and simple is never a force 
in itself; it can only derive power from the spirit and from the 
inward faith of the combatant. To proclaim one’s hostility to 
an idea, without being able to meet it on equal terms, only 
gives it a fresh stimulus. It is just as useless to ignore it; if 
you do ignore it, or retire from it, it advances; if you halt 
before it in a neutral attitude, it fixes and hypnotizes you; if 
you pay it the formal tribute of recognition, you at once be- 
come its slave. While the ruling classes sank deeper into their 
selfishness, Reform crept in imperceptibly ; very soon its pres- 
ence was felt. “It was in the air.” And many a politician, 
penetrated with the amiable scepticism of the time, had no 
objection to giving Reform a Platonic adhesion, with the men- 
tal rider that nothing serious was involved thereby. After a 
time several Whig members of Parliament, in addition to the 
earnest reformers, found themselyes committed to it, and were 
extremely embarrassed as the agitation for the extension of 
the suffrage grew more vehement. Before long even the most 


94 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





old-fashioned Whigs came to the conclusion that it was difficult, 
if not impossible, to avoid a new measure of Parliamentary 
Reform. 

The same events and the same intellectual movement made 
a breach in the Tory party, in a different way, but quite as 
effectively. After the catastrophe of 1846 the Tories, who had 
been “ betrayed” by their leader, had lost confidence in every- 
body and everything. They gave way to a profound discourage- 
ment, and to a fear so intense and so little concealed that those 
who witnessed it must have been divided between compassion 
and amusement. The rising tide of new ideas convinced the 
Conservatives that all hope was lost, that a relentless fatality 
was dragging England towards the abyss of radicalism and 
democracy, and they went so far as to repeat the line of Homer 
which the blind child recited to Mummius after the taking of 
Corinth, “ Happy are those who are in the tomb.”! Tories of 
a less imaginative stamp gave themselves up prosaically to 
despondency and apathy. Parliamentary life, with its sterile 
contests and the simulated warmth of its debates, only served 
to nourish and intensify these sentiments. It was in vain 
that Disraeli tried to restore the failing courage of his fol- 
lowers by incessant attacks on the governments of the day. 
Even his successes were ephemeral. He was “compelled to 
fight battles without profit, and to take office without power,” 
as a devoted biographer admits.? It is true that the Conserva- 
tive party had increased in size to a certain extent; the great 
prosperity of the country since the year 1846, which had 
created in the urban middle class a large category of prosper- 
ous people contented with things as they are, had driven 
many of them into the Conservative camp. ‘This accession 


1 Wellington when bidding farewell to Croker, whom he believed to be at 
the point of death (but who survived him by a few weeks), said to him: ‘‘ But 
at least, my dear Croker, it is some consolation to us who are so near the end 
of our career that we shall be spared seeing the consummation of the ruin 
that is gathering about us’”’ (Croker Papers, III, 363). The whole corre- 
spondence collected in these three volumes betrays the same mental preoccu- 
pation in the Conservative ranks. Lord Strangford writes, in a letter of the 
21st October, 1854: ‘* Chateaubriand sometimes speaks truth, and never 
more so where he says: ‘Nous sommes sur les bords d’un monde qui finit et 
d’un autre monde qui commence.’ ‘What a frightful thing this ‘ commence- 
ment’ will be!’’ (Zbid. 343). 

2'T. E. Kebbel, Life of Lord Beaconsfield (1888), p. 92. 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 95 





of strength from the middle class, while widening the basis of 
Conservatism throughout the country, also acted as a dis- 
solvent. The Tories of the old school had lost faith in the 
strength of their cause, and the new men had never possessed 
it. The crowd of wealthy manufacturers, merchants, and shop- 
keepers who called themselves Conservatives had no traditions 
to cling to or defend with resolution. But in return they 
brought with them the business mind which urged that the cus- 
tomer must be kept in a good humour; that it was more prudent 
to come to terms, and save what could be saved from the wreck 
—in a word, the complete philosophy of the counting-house. 
Between these two states of mind — of demoralization on the 
one hand, and aggressive enthusiasm on the other — an arbiter 
interposed _under the pretext of bringing about a settlement, 
but_in reality with the object of seizing the property in dis- 
pute, like the third thief in the fable. This arbiter was 
the political parties. Having exhausted, from the year 
1846, all the great questions which divided them, they 
were living from hand to mouth and wasting their existence 
in sterile conflicts devoid of all principle. They played with 
every political question which circumstances brought to the 
front or which they invented themselves for the requirements 
of the game which was henceforth their sole resource. Not 
that public life no longer presented a field for genuine activ- 
ity; on the contrary, the transitional state of society issuing 
from a feudal condition created pressing needs which im- 
periously demanded the attention of the legislator: the educa- 
tion of the masses, “the greatest of all causes,” according to 
Cobden; the recasting of local self-government for the repair 
of the civic machinery which brought citizens together in the 
discharge of a daily task undertaken for the furtherance of 
common interests, which invited and to a certain extent com- 
pelled them to study the general interest and to feel them- 
selves live in it. The parties in the State were indifferent to 
these reforms ; for they were not “ political questions,” which by 
means of the natural or artificial antagonism created by them 
give the victory to this or that side. Being in their nature 
unconnected with party interests, the great measures of social 
reconstruction would only have benefited the country at large. 
Things however, were not going smoothly for these exhausted 




















96 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





factions; there was no vigour, no cohesion, especially in the 
Liberal party. The advanced section, which alone had ideas 
as representing the views of the Philosophical Radicals and 
the radicalism professed by the élite of the workingmen in the 
towns, became more and more refractory. Harassed by the 
Tories on one side and by the Radicals on the other, the old 
Whigs agreed with the latter to reopen the question of a fresh 
extension of the suffrage. They complied reluctantly and 
without the faintest wish for the success of the reform, which 
inspired them with more fear than hope for their future. From 
1852 onward plan after plan was brought forward, but all were 
still-bozn. When the Tories came into power in 1858 with no 
particular policy, they took up the question of the suffrage on 
their own account, but with as little sincerity and success as 
the Whigs. For both sides Parliamentary Reform was a good 
pretext for overthrowing the government of the day in order 
to take its place. When the truce of Palmerston, “the Tory 
chief of a Radical Cabinet,” was established in the House of Com- 
mons, the two sides came to the conclusion that the farce had 
lasted long enough, and the question of Reform was dropped. 
But after the death of the illustrious statesman broke the 
spell which kept parties in a state of immobility and the latter 
had to resume their position, the problem of the electoral 
franchise was taken up again and with it that of the future of 
political parties. Worn-out, well-nigh ruined, they had lived 
on Palmerston’s credit for the last few years. What were they 
to liveonnow? Feeling, in spite of the bluntness of their per- 
ceptions, —as is the case with all ultra-moderate parties, — that 
“ Reform was in the air,” the Whigs thought that the extension 
of the suffrage might after all contain an element of good? that 
it might be a sort of plank thrown out in the shipwreck of his- 
torical parties; and that if the new electors were indebted to 
the Whigs for the right of voting they would swell their train, 
strengthen their position in the country, and give the effete 
Whig party, as it were, a renewal of youth. But it was just 
this probability which threw the Conservatives into despair; 
it seemed to sound their death-knell. Thereupon their inge- 
nious leader Disraeli resolved as a last resort to dish his oppo- 
nents: his plan was to offer the franchise to the masses on 
behalf of the Conservative party after having previously fash- 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 97 





ioned it in a conservative spirit. “ You cannot,” he explained 
to his followers, “form a party of resistance pure and simple, 
because change is inevitable in a progressive country; the 
question is whether Reform shall be carried out in the spirit of 
the national customs and traditions, or whether you will follow 
abstract principles and general doctrines.” The dilemma was 
well stated; as in the time of the Young England party, a 
quarter of a century before, Disraeli had a luminous vision of 
the situation, of the causes which had conduced to it, and of 
the conflicting elements; but on this occasion too he miscalcu- 
lated their respective forces by imagining that Reform would 
be carried out “in the spirit of the national customs and tra- 
ditions ” if the Tory party were entrusted with the preparation 
of the Bill. These customs and traditions were mere phantoms, 
and at the first summons of Radicalism Disraeli himself con- 
signed them to the nether world. The popular demonstrations 
in favour of Reform, which were got up soon after the Conserv- 
ative government came into office, created a regular panic in 
the Tory ranks. The country as a whole remained tranquil 
and almost indifferent. Even the disturbances in Hyde Park, 
where the agitators had assembled a monster meeting, did not 
exceed the limits of the kind of riot which the London mob 
liked to indulge in. But this display of physical force was 
enough to intimidate the members of Parliament who were 
opposed to Reform. Believing that the triumph of Radicalism 
was inevitable, both Tories and Whigs rushed to meet it half 
way, in a wild race in which each tried to outstrip the other. 
In bringing in his Reform Bull Disraeli expressly stated that 
Parliament ought to represent not numbers but interests; that 
‘to give a faithful reflection of the country the dominant char- 
acteristic of the suffrage should be not uniformity but variety 
of electoral qualifications; that England was and would remain 
a country of classes which balanced each other, and that each 
class was entitled to an influence in Parliament corresponding 
not to the number of heads which it counted, but to its social 
worth, its intelligence, and its wealth, so that no class should 
be able to crush the others by mere numerical superiority. 
To carry out these ideas Disraeli’s plan, while lowering the 
rating electoral qualification, gave votes irrespective of the rat- 
ing franchise to various groups of individuals who had proved 
VOL. I—H 














98 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





their capacity either by their education or their practical actiy- 
ity (for instance to graduates of universities and others, to 
depositors of £30 in the savings-bank, to persons possessing 
£50 in the public funds or paying 20s. in direct taxes). If 
the 20s. taxpayers occupied a dwelling which gave a right 
to the suffrage, they were to have a double vote. In the 
towns the rating qualification was to be lowered from £10 to 
£6, but the payment of a rent of £6 would not secure a vote 
unless the occupant of the dwelling paid the poor-rate himself, 
so that the “compound householders” would have been ex- 
cluded from the franchise. On the other hand, the Bill 
rejecting all “artificial symmetry” in the arrangement of the 
constituencies, only gave seats to a few large towns which had 
remained unrepresented, while preserving all the unimportant 
boroughs which already had the right to return a member. 
Not one of these “checks and balances” against demo- 
cracy conceived by Disraeli withstood the assault of parties. 
The Liberals, who had not the slightest intention of being 
taken in tow to pass a reform which they considered a patent 
of their own, maintained that all the “safeguards” provided 
by the Bill were unjust and vexatious. They threatened to 
give up the question of the extension of the suffrage rather 
than accept it under such conditions. The Tories, in their 
turn, did not wish to throw up the game and were afraid of 
alienating the new electors by a too uncompromising attitude. 
“Educated by events,” according to Disraeli’s expression, they 
made one concession after another under the guidance of their 
adroit chief. “ We have no longer,’ as Robert Lowe pointed 
out, “a party of attack and a party of resistance. We have 
instead two parties of competition, who, like Cleon and the 
sausage-seller of Aristophanes, are both bidding for the sup- 
port of Demos.” All the safeguards were abandoned. The 
special franchises, contemptuously styled “fancy franchises,” 
were given up without a struggle. The double vote shared 
the same fate. Disraeli spontaneously threw over the £6 
qualification for urban electors in spite of the adverse opin- 
ion of several Liberals who inclined towards a £5 qualification, 
and household suffrage pure and simple was adopted. The 
condition of personal payment of the poor-rate, which was the 
backbone of the Bill, was simply dropped. The franchise was 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 99 





granted not only to all householders in towns, but also to 
lodgers paying a yearly rent of £10. In the redistribution of 
seats the criterion of population was applied on a much more 
extended scale than in the original Bill, which was a protest 
against “artificial symmetry.” 

Whatever may have been the motives and calculations which 
mingled in the brains of Conservatives and Liberals, the spirit 
which presided over their legislation was from one end to the 
other a levelling one. The variety of electoral qualifications 
was sacrificed and as much uniformity introduced as possible ; 
instead of maintaining the traditional “balance of power” by 
emphasizing the distinctions between the constituent elements 
of the electoral body, they were well-nigh obliterated. Prop- 
erty qualifications being almost abolished for electors in towns, 
and the suffrage being extended to lodgers, Parliament ceased 


to refle rests and became simply the r of 
n ban masses obtai he largest share of 


paveneece and England became a democracy. It was of 
no consequence that one or two more stages had to be passed 
before universal suffrage was reached; those who were not 
admitted to the franchise were bound in logic to obtain it 
sooner or later, as there was no longer an immovable limit to 
keep them out of it. The Reform Bill of 1832 had already 
pushed it back, by adding a rational qualification for the fran- 
chise to the historical electoral right. People endeavoured to 
minimize the significance of that Bill and to persuade them- 
selves that it had only readjusted the “balance of power” 
‘ without making any “concession to the principle of numbers.” 
This was not the case; there was no longer a balance, but_an 
incline, which, when once stepped upon, had_to be descended 
to the end. The bull of [867 supplied a demonstration of this, 
and by establishing the fact in an emphatic manner it opened 
the era of democracy in the English State. 

The “abstract principles and general doctrines” to which 
Disraeli wished to oppose “national customs and traditions” 
were consequently triumphant all along the line. We have 
followed their victorious progress in these pages for a century, 
and have seen how, with the powerful aid of circumstances, 
one success after another led them to a decisive triumph. A 
time-honoured prejudice insists that the English are inac- 














100 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rimst part 





cessible to general ideas, as if these ideas were a sort of 
contagious malady against which the robust Anglo-Saxon con- 
stitution is proof. On the other side of the Channel the Eng- 
lish were often congratulated on this, they became objects of 
envy, and they themselves were only too ready to believe that 
they could not catch the “French complaint.” If this had 
really been the case, the English would have been outside 
humanity and would not have shared in its greatness and its 
wretchedness. Driving individuals and nations from sublimity 
to folly, the power of an idea strikes indiscriminately and takes 
possession of the whole being. The outward semblance alone 
varies. One people embraces an idea with rapture, another 
tries to bargain with it, like the countryman who, in order 
to beat down the price, pretends not to care about the 
article which he is sure to buy in the end, as he has left home 
for that very purpose. From the moment when the individ- 
ual soul awoke and claimed to assert itself before God and 
society, the conception of “man” entered the social and po- 
litical life of England once and for all. It penetrated into 
England by the path of morality as it did into France by 
that of logic. An idea finds its way into the intelligence by 
the door which is easiest to open, here by one and there 
by another; but this does not make it change its character 
or its postulates, and if these latter are developed by similar 
methods and under similar circumstances, they are bound to 
assert themselves with equal force. In England, as in France, 
the individual was for a long time repressed and sacrificed to 
the community, or rather to what usurped its place. At last he: 
demanded justice. Opinion on both sides of the Channel ad- 
vancing towards him could see nothing but him; absorbed in its 
task of emancipation, it rushed straight on without looking to 
the right or to the left. As soon as it had brought its protégé 
out of the crowd, it gave him and each of his fellows the power 
of governing themselves, with the result that the community 
which they formed became the sum total of their persons and 
their powers, a democracy as it is generally called, an arithmo- 
cracy, as it has been more accurately described. To become 
realities these conceptions needed the co-operation of events, and 
this was not denied them. What the destroyers of the Bastille 
did in France was accomplished by the spinning-jenny and the 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 101 





steam-engine in England; both gave a helping hand to the 
conclusions of philosophy. The fact that the new ideas did 
not find vent in England by means of a violent explosion, but 
made their way little by little, rendered their effect on 
the public mind all the more certain. Their conversion 
into practice having devolved on the political parties in 
the State, the latter in their passionate rivalry only thrust 
them deeper into the narrow channel marked out by thought. 
All forms of mental narrowness, whether in the sphere of 
speculation or that of action, conspire together. Like the 
“geometric theory of society,”’’ which recognizes only one 
cause of all social phenomena and only one property of ee 
nature, and disregards all the others, so ical 

their undeviating pursuit of the object which secures ee 
brief period of power compress into it as :uto a sort of Pro- 
crustean bed all the phenomena of the political and social 
situation with their causes and their consequences. In _their 
anxiety to carry Reform over the heads of their opponents, 
English politicians not only brought their legislative enact- 
ments to the level occupied by the postulates of ideology, 
but_u agreed with its arguments and its inmost 
thoughts. “Not till this question of Reform has disappeared 
amongst the subjects of controversy,” said Mr. Gladstone in 
1866, “can we hope to see the people of England what they 
once were, and what we ought to be desirous they should ever 
continue to be,—a united people.”? Subsequently, after the 
passing of the Bill of 1867, John Bright in calling attention to 
its merits remarked: “The Bill of 1832 was a great Bill; but 
still it left two nations among the people —a small minority 
included, and a large majority excluded.” *® Reverting to the 
division into two nations of Disraeli’s “Sybil,” Gladstone and 
Bright evidently suggested the inference that the extension of 
the suffrage put an-end to it, that this reform had the power 
to restore the moral unity of a disintegrated society, that it was 
the bearer of the long-expected synthesis. But if equal right 


























1To use the term of J. S. Mill (System of Logic, Bk. VI, Chap. VII, of the 
geometrical or abstract method). 

2 Hansard, 3d series, Vol. 185, p. 248. 

8 Public Addresses of John Bright, ed. by J. E. Thorold Rogers, Lond. 
1879, p. 193. 


102 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rrirsr part 





of voting is enough to make a nation united, it is because 
society is simply the arithmetical total of the individuals who 
compose it. Neither Bentham nor his French predecessors of 
the eighteenth century went farther than this. 


VI 


At the moment therefore when the Reform Bill of 1867 was 
about to become law, Benthamism might have repeated to 
itself: Nunc dimittis servum tuum. Its most illustrious repre- 
sentatives, J. 8. Mill and G. Grote, lived to witness the triumph 
of rationalist individualism in the sphere of politics. But 
their satisfaction was very far from being without alloy. Fora 
long time their minds, especially that of Mill, had been gravely 
preoccupied with the future destiny of the individual in society. 
They demanded the political emancipation of the individual, 
but if, by virtue of the right on which they took their stand, 
it was granted indiscriminately to all members of society, if 
the whole body of individuals was invested with it, how would 
the particular individual be able to preserve his independence 
against them; would not the freedom become a delusion and a 
snare and the individual be at the mercy of a tyranny just as 
oppressive as that from which he was liberated? The result 
then was to create a Frankenstein —to adopt the illustration 
of which the English are so fond —like the hero of the cele- 
brated story,’ the young student Frankenstein who plunged so 
deep into the study of alchemy that one day a quasi-human 
creature stepped out of the crucible in his laboratory, but inas- 
much as divine skill had not been vouchsafed to the human 
artificer, instead of ‘a man he created a frightful monster to 
which he himself fell a victim after protracted agony. The 
emancipated individual crushed by individualism, what a pros- 
pect! Grote, who throughout his whole life advocated the ballot, 
or system of secret voting, to insure the independence of each 
elector, contemplated with feelings akin to melancholy the ap- 
proaching accomplishment of the reform of which he had consti- 
tuted himself the champion. He thought that the advantages 
conferred by the ballot would be lost with the enormous exten- 


1 Frankenstein, or the New Prometheus, by Mrs. Shelley, the wife of the 
poet. Lond. 1816. 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 103 





sion of the electorate introduced by the Bill of 1867. For “the 
English mind,” said the illustrious historian, “is much of one 
pattern, take whatsoever class you will,”* and with great masses 
of electors the tendency to advance in one direction and to crush 
by weight of numbers would only increase. Even a republican 
form of government, which was his ideal, was no longer a safe- 
guard in his eyes. “I have outlived,” said Grote in 1867, a pro- 
pos of the United States, “my faith in the efficacy of republican 
government regarded as a check upon the vulgar passions of a 
majority in a nation, and I recognize the fact that supreme 
power lodged in their hands may be exercised quite as mis- 
chievously as by a despotic ruler like the first Napoleon.” ? 
Mill did not wait till the end of his life to indulge in similar 
reflections. They began in his case with the perusal of 
“Democracy in America” by de Tocqueville, just as in his 
early days another French book, the life »f Turgot by Condor- 
cet, inspired him with the faith in the infinite perfectibility of 
man which made him adopt Bentham’s theories of democracy. 
“Tn that remarkable work” (of de Tocqueville), says Mill him- 
self, “the excellences of democracy were pointed out in a more 
conclusive, because a more specific, manner than I had ever 
known them to be, even by the most enthusiastic democrats; 
while the specific dangers which beset democracy, considered 
as the government of numerical majority, were brought into 
equally strong light, and subjected to a masterly analysis.” ? 
The more Mill’s mind outgrew the narrow formulas of the 
Benthamism of Bentham and of his father, James Mill, the 
more uneasy he became about the individual confronted by 
numbers. Examining his master’s doctrine, Mill asked him- 
self “is it at all times and places, good for mankind to be 
under the absolute authority of the majority of themselves,” 
and he came to the conclusion that Bentham had not turned 
his genius to the best account when, “not content with 
enthroning the majority as sovereign by means of universal 
suffrage without King or House of Lords, he exhausted all the 
resources of ingenuity in devising means for riveting the yoke 
of public opinion closer and closer. ... Wherever all the 
forces of society act in one single direction, the just claims of 


1 Personal Life of Mr. Grote, by Mrs. Grote, Lond. 1873, p. 313. 
2 Tbid., p. 314. 3 Autobiography, p. 191. 


104 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [Firsr Part 





the individual human being are in extreme peril. The power 
of the majority is salutary so far as it is used defensively not 
offensively, as its exertion is tempered by respect for the per- 
sonality of the individual, and deference to superiority of cul- 
tivated intelligence.”’ But how .is the majority to be armed 
for the defensive and to be made powerless for the offensive ? 
Mill thought that “ Montesquieu with the lights of the present 
age would have done it; and we are possibly destined to re- 
ceive this benefit from the Montesquieu of our times, M. de 
Tocqueville.” ? 

The years rolled on, and there was no sign of a remedy in 
the direction of France. At last Mill thought that he had 
discovered it in the plan of his fellow-countryman, Thomas 
Hare, for personal representation. ‘TI saw in this great prac- 
tical and philosophical idea the greatest improvement of 
which the system of representative government is susceptible ; 
an improvement which, in the most felicitous manner, exactly 
meets and cures the grand, and what before seemed the in- 
herent, defect of the representative system; that of giving 
to a numerical majority all power, instead of a proportional 
power to its numbers, and enabling the strongest party to 
exclude all weaker parties from making their opinion heard 
in the assembly of the nation, except through such opportu- 
nity as may be given to them by the accidentally unequal dis- 
tribution of opinions in different localities. To these great 
evils nothing more than very imperfect palliations had seemed 
possible ; but Mr. Hare’s system affords a radical cure. This 
great discovery, for it is no less, in the political art, inspired 
me, as I believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who 
have adopted it, with new and more sanguine hopes respect- 
ing the prospects of human society; by freeing the form 
of political institutions towards which the whole civilized 
world is manifestly and irresistibly tending, from the chief 
part of what seemed to qualify, or render doubtful, its ulti- 
mate benefits. Minorities, so long as they remain minorities, 
are, and ought to be, outvoted; but under arrangements which 
enable any assemblage of voters, amounting to a certain num- 
ber, to place in the legislature a representative of its own 
choice, minorities cannot be suppressed. Independent opin- 

1 Dissertations and Discussions, I, 381. 2 Tbid., p. 382. 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 105 





ions will force their way into the council of the nation and 
make themselves heard there, a thing which often cannot 
happen in the existing forms of representative democracy ; 
and the legislature, instead of being weeded of individual 
peculiarities and entirely made up of men who simply repre- 
sent the creed of great political and religious parties, will 
comprise a large proportion of the most eminent individual 
minds in the country placed there, without reference to party, 
by voters who appreciate their individual eminence.” ? 

Hare’s idea was not an entirely new one,’ but as conceived 
and stated by him and expounded by Mill it was really a great 
landmark in the history of political thought and in the art of 
political legislation. It was the first and still remains the 
most important practical attempt that has been made to or- 
ganize numbers in democracies. It was the_first proposal 
which grasped the new material and_moral conditions under 
which representative government would have to work in the_ 
future, which recognized the necessity of replacing the old 
social ties now snapped asunder by spontaneous and _deliber- 


ate ones, of protecting the individual against his new master, 
the sovereign people, of establishing politics on an ethical basis 
hy-paying attention to justice in the distribution of power 
among the units of the sovereign, and of introducing a moral 
exriterion in the choice of the men appointed to govern the 
State by lifting electoral life out of the narrow and corrupt 















































1 Autobiography of J. S. Mill, pp. 258, 259. 

2 As early as the debates on the first Reform Bill we find germs of it,* 
which were subsequently developed in some writings,f and incorporated in a 
clause of Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill of 1854. On the continent Victor 
Considérant, the celebrated Fourierist, raised the question as far back as 
1834. At Geneva, where he was living, he pointed out at public meetings the 
defects of the system of majorities, and recommended the substitution of 
a method of election based on a preliminary grouping of electors in ‘ con- 
stituencies of opinion’’ and even submitted his plan to the Grand Council 
of Geneva in 1846. 

In America the question of minority representation was broached for the first 
time in a pamphlet of Thomas Gilpin on ‘‘ The representation of minorities of 
electors to act with the majorities in Elected Assemblies.’ Philadelphia, 1844. 


* Praed’s motion in 1831 (Hansard, Vol. 188, p. 1075). 

+ J. G. Marshall, On Minorities and Majorities, Lond. 1853; Spectator, 1853 ; Hdin- 
burgh Review, July, 1854. 

¢ His very interesting circular on this subject, addressed to the members of the Grand Coun- 
cil, and entitled ‘‘ De la sincérité du gouvernement représentatif ou exposition de l’élection 
véridique,’’ has been reprinted at Ziirich, in 1892 (Imprimerie de la Société suisse du Griitli). 


106 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 


roove of traditional parties. Unfortunately there was a dis- 
proportion between the end in view and the means suggested. 
The improvement proposed in the electoral machinery, ingen- 
ious as it was, could not of itself alone supply the moral 
force of which the new political society stood in need; the 
justice which it claimed to secure in political relations was 
chiefly an arithmetical justice; the psychological reaction 
which the new electoral system was intended to produce in the 
electors, however probable and salutary, could only be of a very 
indirect and consequently very limited kind, in any event too 
limited to cover the whole field of political life and become 
its motive power. Viewed with reference to the effect which 
it held out, the plan of “ personal representation” inevitably 
laid itself open to the criticism which Mill himself passed on 
Bentham in a sentence pregnant with meaning in spite of its 
‘apparent truism: “ Nobody’s synthesis can be more complete 
than his analysis.”? Confined to electoral arrangements, the 
political synthesis which it was supposed to offer was not a 
s esis at all. Mill was all the less able to see the weak- 
ness of his position because there was no other alternative 
open to him. Led by the principle of utility to install num- 
bers as the supreme power in the State, and perceiving sub- 
sequently that the individual ran the risk of being crushed 
by numbers which had become master, the philosopher had 
nowhere to look for protection for his unfortunate client; for, 
laden with the original sin of Benthamism, he had repudiated 
the sovereignty of right in politics just as he had rejected that 
of duty in the moral sphere. As only material forces remained 
to be brought into play, there was nothing whatever to interfere 
between the individual interest and the multiplied interest of 
numbers, unless some new dynamical combination could be de- 
vised to enable the weak to hold its own against the strong. In 
proportional representation, Mill believed that he had at last 
hit on this undiscoverable combination, and hence his delight 
(“this great discovery inspired me with new and more san- 
guine hopes respecting the prospects of human society”), 
which under the circumstances strikes us as excessive for such 
a powerful intellect. He fastened on it with all the resources 
of his genius, as a shipwrecked man clings with all his strength 
to the plank that comes within his reach. He made Hare’s 

















1 Dissertations and Discussions, I, 350. 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 107 





plan his own, laid it before public opinion, enforced general 
attention to it by the prestige of his name, brought the question 
within the category of the great problems of politics, and 
finally submitted it to Parliament, to which he had in the 
meanwhile been elected. 

When the debates on the Reform Bill were drawing to an 
end, Mill moved the insertion of a clause relating to per- 
sonal representation. According to the amendment which he 
brought forward with this object, in the sitting of the 30th 
May, 1867, the total number of votes recorded throughout the 
Kingdom in the same election, divided by 658 (the number of 
members to be elected), was to determine the minimum of votes 
necessary for the election of a candidate, and all the votes 
given to a candidate, even in more than one constituency, hav- 
ing been added up and credited to him, any candidate who 
received the above-mentioned quotient of votes, whether in 
his own constituency or in several taken together, would be 
declared elected. The electors were to have the power of 
specifying several candidates in the order of preference which 
they assigned to them, but an elector’s vote would only count 
for one candidate; if the candidate had already obtained a 
number of votes exceeding the quotient necessary to secure 
election, the surplus would be transferred to the candidates 
who had not attained the quotient at the first start, always 
following the order of preference indicated, until the num- 
ber of 658 members was completed. In the speech which 
Mill delivered in support of the amendment, he pointed out 
with much force that the proposed enactment was not inspired 
by any considerations of party ; that far from allowing one party 
to lord it over all the others, its result would be to save those 
which were in danger of being overwhelmed; that it would 
remedy the inherent defect of representative government, which 
is that minorities defeated in elections are left without any rep- 
resentation and that local majorities themselves are not faith- 
fully represented, the voter being obliged to choose between 
the candidates of the two great parties, who are often selected 
by intrigue and thrust upon the constituency by corruption. 
The exclusion of minorities on the pretext that the opinion of 
the minority defeated in one constituency is successful in 
another is not in accordance with the representative system, 











108 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





the object of which is to insure the representation not of 
parties, but of citizens. Every opinion entertained by a rea- 
sonable number of electors ought to be directly represented, 
and the sentiments, opinions, and interests of a community 
must not be subordinated to party considerations. The option 
which the electors would be allowed of giving their votes to 
persons other than local candidates, far from destroying the 
local character of representation, would enable it to express 
itself with greater deliberation. The plan proposed would 
suit the Conservatives, who are anxious that variety in repre- 
sentation should be maintained, and it is just as much in 
harmony with democratic principles, which demand that every 
one should be represented and to an equal extent. The plan 
would allow the representation of the working classes, but it 
would be a safeguard against the predominance of these 
classes as well as that of any other class, and in this way 
the principles of spurious democracy would be opposed by 
the principles of genuine democracy. 

This speech of Mill’s was lost on the House, the Libeyal 
members included, and the observations presented by the 
greatest thinker of the time were on the point of being passed 
over amid general silence, when a young member, who already 
held a prominent position in Parliament, rose from the Tory 
benches to support Mill’s amendment. This was Viscount 
Cranborne, who has since become Prime Minister of England 
under the name of the Marquis of Salisbury. He agreed that 
the danger pointed out by Mill really existed; that the result 
of conferring the suffrage on the multitude would be to swamp 
local influence and substitute for it that of committees and 
professional politicians, although he could not refrain from 
observing that the mischief, as well as the remedy proposed, 
was due to a certain extent to Mill himself and to the school 
to which he belonged. ‘The philosophers had led them into 
the difficulty ; if the country was landed in household suffrage, 
it was not in order to meet a practical necessity, but to comply 
with philosophical arguments. Noting that power was after 
all about to be entrusted not to philosophers, but to persons 
who were anything but philosophers, the speaker viewed with 
the greatest apprehension that, after the non-philosophical Eng- 
lish mind had been carried a certain distance, people shrank 


FOURTH CHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 109 





from adopting the remedies which the philosophers recom- 
mended for preventing the evils inherent in the advanced 
political condition of society. They were putting new wine 
in old bottles. Household suffrage had just been granted 
on purely theoretical principles; why then should they reject 
a purely theoretical cure for evils due to the extension of the 
suffrage on the ground that it was utterly unpractical? Mill’s 
amendment therefore deserved most serious consideration. 
This agreement of a high-and-dry Tory like Lord Cranborne 
with the apostle of Radicalism was piquant enough, but never- 
theless logical. Mill was preoccupied_with the fate of the 











abstract_individual who was in danger of being overwhelmed 
by numbers; the Tories were thinking of their_old_constitu- 
ents, that is, of the concrete individuals who would probably 
be_swamped by the new mass of voters. Since electoral 
reform had come to the front again, they had exercised 
their ingenuity in trying to discover some means of partially 
neutralizing the consequences of the extension of the suffrage. 
Their efforts were directed to two points, —the variety of the 
franchise and secondly and especially the homogeneity of the 
cgnstituencies, in order to preserve as much as possible of the old 
unity and social cohesion on which the power of the old ruling 
class had rested. As early as the Bill of 1859 Disraeli had en- 
deavoured to keep the country electors separate from those of 
the towns, and on this point Mill found himself in agreement 
with the Tories when he too declared for the exclusion of urban 
voters from the county constituencies in order “to enable the 
agricultural population to hold its fair share of the representa- 
tion.”* During the debate on the Reform Bill of 1866 the 
Tories took up the same attitude with regard to the introduc- 
tion of urban agglomerations into the old county constituencies 
and denounced “the urbanizing tendency which ran through 
the whole of this Bill.”? The Conservatives offered an equally 
determined opposition to the grouping of boroughs, which had 
hitherto been independent constituencies, into more or less 
equal electoral districts, for the result would be to destroy the 
individuality of these boroughs and put an end to the time- 
honoured social and political relations which had grown up 























1 Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, Lond. 1859, p. 15. 
2 Hansard, Vol. 183, p. 1829. 


110 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





with them. With unerring instinct the Tories discerned that 
the break-up of the old society, with all its political conse- 
quences, would be consummated by an electoral reform which 
tended in the direction of a uniform suffrage and equal electo- 
ral districts. “Such a system was about the most destructive 
surgical operation you could put a country through; it would 
be a severing of the limbs from the trunk, and cutting through 
the muscles and sinews of the body politic.” ... “If they left 
the people under their natural leaders, and if they had natu- 
rally selected districts, there was no fear that the people would 
choose improper men, and there would be no need of checks or 
counterpoises to defend the minority.”! Lord Cranborne saw 
clearly that all these pious wishes could be nothing but wishes 
in a society with its old unity gone and with its traditional 
relations irrevocably destroyed, and that the old political weap- 
ons had grown rusty ; consequently he boldly laid his hand on 
the armour forged by Mill for the use of the abstract individual 
in order to arm his own followers with it. 

Lord Cranborne’s speech made a considerable impression, 
and he was thanked for having saved the House from a great 
disgrace by his intervention, but in view of the hostile attitude 
of Parliament, Mill withdrew his amendment. 

A month later the question came before the House again in 
consequence of an amendment moved by Robert Lowe, who 
proposed that in every constituency with more than one seat 
the elector who had to record a number of votes equal to the 
number of seats might give them all to one candidate or dis- 
tribute them among several candidates. In the debate, which 
on this occasion was a lengthy one, the speakers on one side 
dwelt on the necessity of giving minorities the means of making 
themselves heard in Parliament, of defending themselves and 
of protecting their interests, and at the same time of insuring 
a certain variety in the national representation; while on the 
other side every measure for the representation of minorities 
was regarded as a spoliation of the majority and an attack on 
the true principles of representative government. This last 
position was upheld by John Bright, the famous orator and at 
that time one of the leaders of advanced Liberalism. Warmly 
protesting his devotion to “the ancient ways of the Constitu- 

1 Hansard, Vol. 186, pp. 575, 576. 

















FouRTH cHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 111 





tion,” a devotion of which people hardly suspected him capa- 
ble, he adjured the House not to allow itself to be led away 
by “new-fangled ideas.” The amendment was rejected. But 
the friends of minority representation were more successful in 
the House of Lords. On the motion of Lord Cairns the Upper 
Chamber inserted a clause in the Reform Bill enacting that in 
the twelve three-cornered constituencies the elector could not 
vote for more than two candidates, and in the city of London, 
which returned four members, for more than three; then the re- 
maining seat was bound to revert to the minority if it amounted 
to one-third (or to one-fourth in the city of London) of the 
constituency. When the Bill was sent back to the House of 
Commons, the new clause inserted by the Lords was strongly 
attacked. John Bright once more exerted himself vigorously 
and undertook to move its rejection. The effect might be, 
he asserted, not to confer a representation on minorities, but 
to curb the democracy, to defraud the population of the large 
towns of a part of their representation; by guaranteeing a seat 
to the minority beforehand, the contest was nullified for the 
majority and stagnation introduced into political life; the side 
which had a majority was cheated not only by withdrawing a 
_ seat from it, but by neutralizing the vote of a member of the 
majority by that of the member for the minority; henceforth 
each constituency would have two voices, of which one will 
say white and the other black, like a conjuror who produces 
port, champagne, milk, or water out of the same bottle; it 
was difficult to imagine a principle more calculated to destroy 
the vitality of the elective system. Every plan of this kind 
would enfeeble and finally destroy the authority and strength 
of the executive government. Some of these arguments had 
already been used by Disraeli in the debate on Lowe’s amend- 
ment. 

In 1832, when the rotten boroughs were about to be abol- 
ished, Wellington asked with naive dismay: “How will the 
King’s government be carried on?” Bright now said much 
the same thing: How could you have your snug majority if 
you took so much care of the minority. It was the cry of 
the old party system, which had been suffering from an 
acute internal malady since 1846, and was now touched 
to the quick by the proposed scheme of personal repre- 


112 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First parr 





sentation. That a great party leader like Disraeli should 
join in this outcry was natural enough. But that Bright 
should constitute himself the mouthpiece of it was perhaps 
somewhat inconsistent with the reputation of political icono- 
clast which his opponents had conferred on him during the 
first half of his public career. In reality he was nothing 
of the kind. When Bright protested his attachment to the 
“ancient ways of the constitution,” he was perfectly sincere, 
more so even than he imagined himself. In spite of his de- 
meanour of a tribune of the people, Bright was never a demo- 
crat; his generous and passionate temperament gave him a 
certain affinity with the people, but he was a thorough bourgeois 
in mind. Unlimited freedom for trade and labour, endless de- 
velopment of manufactures, the destruction of the landlords’ 
“hereditary privileges,” and the permanent exclusion of the 
Tory party from power was enough for his ideal. In Bright’s 
eyes democracy was a party, the good and the right party, to 
which he belonged and for which he laboured, and which now, 
thanks to the extension of the franchise, would be placed on a 
solid basis throughout the country. Any measure tending to 
limit the power of the majority would undermine this founda- 
tion, would be an unfair blow levelled at the democracy, a 
dodge of the Tories brought to bay, and an invention of the 
philosophers. The great mass of members, whose political 
horizon was not wider than Bright’s, were only too ready to 
adopt this point of view, that of party interests. 

Thus as England was about _to cross the very threshold of 
democracy a singular antagonism broke out: on the one side 
people wanted to protect _the individual from the oppression 
of numbers which owed their supremacy to the individual- 
ist movement, while on the other side they were anxious to 
qefend numbers in order to maintain the old system of party 
government which the same movement was breaking up. Each 
of these propositions presented a problem of the utmost gravity 
for the future of England. If the individual had tu defend 
himself against democracy, and if democracy could only be 
founded on the uncontrolled dominion of numbers, would it 
not be like a new Saturn devouring its children? If in order 
to consolidate itself it clung to the old party system which had 
decayed under the action of the very forces which had given 









































/ 


FOURTH cHAP.] TRIUMPH OF THE NEW ORDER 118 





democracy life, would it not impair the vigour of this life and 
perhaps dry up its source, or, to apply Lord Cranborne’s homely 
simile in a wider sense, would not the new wine be irretriey- 
ably spoiled by putting it in old bottles? Whatever was des- 
tined to be the outcome of the impending « conflict, the first act 

gf a stirring drama was evidently beginning on the political 
stage of England. 

The opposition of Bright and of several other members to 
Lord Cairns’ clause was not successful in Parliament; the 
House of Commons, after an animated debate, agreed to the 
amendment voted by the Lords. The principle of the repre- 
sentation of minorities obtained the sanction of the law, al- 
though in a qualified form and to a limited extent. But the 
opposition which it aroused did not come to an end. Bright, 
in particular, was irreconcilable. He appealed to the electoral 
body with all the vehemence of which he was capable, and 
this was considerable. “ An odious and infamous clause,” “the 
most outrageous heresy against a popular representative sys- 
tem which was ever propounded in the legislature,” “a clause 
which ought to have come not from the honest representation 
of the people, but from Bedlam or a region like that ” — these 
were the terms in which Bright described the minority clause 
to his constituents in Birmingham. This town was one of 
those to which the new system of voting was to be applied. 
“Every Liberal throughout the United Kingdom,” said 
Bright, “is asking: ‘What is Birmingham going to do with 
the minority clause?’” 

Birmingham was not long in returning an answer. It 
created the “ Caucus,” a permanent electoral combination for 
fighting the battle of majorities under the banner of the demo- 
cratic Liberal party. The new institution, which was soon ex- 
tended to the whole country, became the starting-point of a 
movement which is still far from being exhausted, and which 
will perhaps exercise a decisive influence on the destinies of 
English democracy. Started in opposition to the minority 
clause, which was a partial attempt at organizing electoral 
opinion, the more successful Birmingham movement has in 
point of fact undertaken, in a fashion, the organization of the 
electoral masses. Arising at the very moment when the great 


extension of the suffrage made the need for it peculiarly felt, 
VOL. I—I 

















114 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [First part 





it has put forward a solution of the problem stated at the 
commencement of this work, and of which we have just fin- 
ished analysing the historical factors. What is the economy, 
the efficacy, and the bearing of this solution? To form a 
proper estimate of them we must turn to the movement inau- 
curated at Birmingham and follow its evolution closely. We 
shall therefore quit the high road of English history and enter 
the side-path of extra-parliamentary electoral organization. 


SECOND PART 





FIRST CHAPTER 
THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 


Tue form of the combination started at Birmingham for 
fighting the battle of democracy — political association and its 
basis — party organization, were already familiar to English 
public life. A short survey of the precedents of extra-con- 
stitutional political organization in England may therefore 
assist us in following its subsequent development. 


i 


Before liberty had become the basis of government, popular 
opposition and discontent found vent in riots and civil wars. 
In proportion as the régime of opinion took the place of that 
of brute force, internal conflicts assumed another character. 
The adjustment of differences was henceforth left to the free 
play of the moral forces of the nation; conspiracies were to 
give way to a union of convictions, and revolts to the manifes- 
tation of these convictions. But the transition was a long 
one. England succeeded sooner than other nations in creating 
a constitutional organ for making the voice of the country 
heard. Nevertheless ghe had to struggle for centuries, and 
often sword in hand, in order to convert constitutional govern- 
ment into a reality. The Crown, defeated in its duel with the 
nation represented by Parliament, endeavoured to obtain con- 
trol of Parliament by corruption, and succeeded. But public 
opinion rose up once more against it fora final struggle. This 
is the drama which occupies the first half of the long reign of 
George III. The beginning of this reign was particularly 
disturbed. The populace, injured in its immediate interests, 
which were neglected by Parliament, or affected by the gen- 


eral_grievances of the country, whether real or imaginary, 


By 















































118 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp parr 


resorted to riots, in the old fashion." The élite of the nation, 
on the other hand, were_so convinced of the justice of their 
cause that they deemed it sufficient to combat the corruption 


of Parliament with the moral force of opinion. 

But as this very Parliament happened to be the constitu- 
tional mouthpiece of opinion, it was necessary to look about 
for another instrument to give general expression to popular 
aspirations. The Press, still in its infancy, was deficient in 
authority. The right of petitioning, one of the glorious con- 
quests of English liberty, has generally been used, — except 
during the period of the Revolution, —as a means of obtain- 
ing redress for individual or local grievances. To make an 
impression on the Government, in the general interest, the 
co-operation of the masses was necessary. Public meetings 
are destined to supply the first weapon for securing this. 
The resolutions voted in them will be transmitted to Parlia- 
ment by means of petitions. But, in order that these petitions 
should carry weight, they must be numerous, and agree in 
their demands. This result can only be achieved if the move- 
ment is organized and controlled. Committees and associa- 
tions will therefore be formed for this purpose. 

The disturbances caused by Wilkes’ case gave the signal 
for these manifestations. The House of Commons expelled 
Wilkes, a journalist and pamphleteer who was obnoxious to 
Ministers, and then, although he was re-elected several 
times in succession, declared his election null and void each 
time, and finally gave his seat to a rival candidate, who 
had been brought forward against him, but who had been 
defeated at the polls. Indignant at the expulsion of their 
member, Wilkes’ constituents subscribed large sums to defray 
the expense of a fresh election, and forwarded petitions and 
remonstrances to the King. In several counties meetings were 
organized to support the protest against the violation of law 
committed by Parliament. From this time forward fhe hold. 
ing of public meetings became a regular practice in England, 
and_they soon dey nal institution. At 
one of the meetings held in London in consequence of the 
invalidation of Wilkes’ re-election, those who took part in it, 
people of note, formed themselves into a “Society for support- 


1 Weaver’s riots in 1765, riots about Wilkes in 1768, Gordon riots in 1780, etc. 






































FIRST CHAP.] ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 119 





ing the Bill of Rights.”’ In this way the first political asso- 
ciation was founded. The significance of the new institution 
which was making its way into political life was appreciated at 
once. ‘ This was deemed,” we read in the “ Memoirs ” of one of 
the principal promoters of the Society, Horne Tooke, “ a favour- 
able conjuncture to organize a new as well as formidable species 
of opposition, and by means of political associations to concen- 
trate the hitherto unheeded resentments and influence of a num- 
ber of scattered individuals into one formidable mass which, 
without either the forms or restraints of a body politic, should 
produce all the spirit, zeal, and effect of a great corporation.” ? 
The Society proposed to assist every one affected by the arbi- 
trary conduct of the authorities, and by its meetings, its speeches 
and its pecuniary sacrifices, it did a great deal to keep the pub- 
lic mind on the alert and to reassert the discredited principles of 
law and public liberties in more than one individual case. The 
famous author of the “ Letters of Junius,” in bearing testimony 
to the services which the Society was rendering to the common 
weal, recommended the formation of similar societies through- 
out the Kingdom. The “Society for supporting the Bill of 
Rights” soon fell to pieces owing to the action of Wilkes’ 
friends, who wanted to make it an instrument for securing 
his personal ends. The other members parted company with 
Wilkes’ friends, and founded a new society (Constitutional. 
Society), which was shortly followed by other associations of 
small importance.® 

A few years later, in consequence of the shock given to the 
public mind by the secession of the American colonies, the 
movement gathered force. When the expenses of the war 
which was still going on increased the waste of money caused 
by bribing members of Parliament and keeping up the numer- 
ous sinecures by which their creatures were maintained, public 
opinion arose and demanded that the scandals connected with 
the administration of the finances should be put an end to. It 
was resolved to get up a number of petitions to demand economic 
reforms, to which was soon added the reform of parliamentary 





1 Memoirs of John Horne Tooke, by Alex. Stephens, Lond. 1813, Vol. I, p. 
161; The Correspondence of John Wilkes and Memoirs of his Life, by John 
Almon, Lond. 1805, Vol. IV, pp. 7-14. 

2 Memoirs of Horne Tooke, I, 161. 3 Tbid. I, 175. 


120 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





representation, which was considered the surest means of effect- 
ing the suppression of abuses and preventing their recurrence. 
A “corresponding committee” was appointed in each county, 
with power to control the movement. Yorkshire set the ex- 
ample. At a great meeting of the gentry, clergy, and free- 
holders of the county a petition was drawn up and a committee 
appointed with the duty of corresponding on the subject of the 
petition and of “ preparing a plan of an association, on legal 
and constitutional grounds, to support the laudable reform 
and such other measure as might conduce to restore the free- 
dom of Parliament.” The zeal of the reformers was great; the 
baneful influence of the Crown was denounced in all quarters; 
petitions were covered with signatures. In some counties, how- 
ever, doubts ‘arose as to the expedieucy of the committees. 
The mere term “ corresponding committee” evoked unpleasant 
memories, for it was_the name of the popular organizations 
d_pre ion in merican j 
‘These organizations had arisen at Boston, through the efforts of 
a group of influential men who had taken up public affairs and 
who formed themselves into a small informal body styled “ Cau- 
-cus.”* When the relations with the mother-country became 








1 Annual Register, 1780, p. 85. 

2 This word has been adopted in American political terminology from the 
18th century onward, to denote a small committee of men who settle electoral 
affairs privately beforehand. The nickname ‘‘caucus”’ has had a wonderful 
success. It has become the synonym for a political system, and a name for 
extra-parliamentary party organizations, brought about by the advent of 
radical democracy in the United States, and, in our day, in England. In this 
sense the expression ‘‘ caucus ’’ will often recur in this book. 

The origin of this word which has come into such general use is very uncer- 
tain. Several theories have been advanced on the subject. According to some 
the term ‘‘caucus’’ is supposed to come from the North American Indians, 
from the word kaw-kaw-was, which in their language meant to talk, to give 
advice, to instigate, and by a transition denoted the persons who performed 
these acts as well; substantives with the same root are also quoted, cawcaw- 
wassoughes, used to denote the elders of a tribe or family, and caucorouse, 
which was the equivalent of ‘‘chief’’ or ‘‘captain.’’ Another theory, backed 
by the authority of well-known lexicographers, such as Webster, Worcester, 
and Pickering, derives ‘‘caucus’’ from the English word ‘‘calker’’ or 
‘‘caulker,’’ the proper pronunciation of which is supposed to have been 
altered in the expressions ‘‘ caulker’s meeting ”’ or ‘‘ caulker’s club.’’ Accord- 
ing to some it referred to the calkers in the Boston dockyards, who, when 
seeking redress against the English soldiers with whom they came in conflict, 
assembled in meetings at which, as it would appear, delegates were chosen 
to bring their grievances before the authorities. Pickering, who in his 


FIRST CHAP.] ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 121 





particularly strained, the members of the Caucus, in order to 
stimulate the spirit of resistance, procured (in 1772) the ap- 
pointment by the people of Boston of a corresponding com- 
mittee of twenty-one members, whose duty was to enter into 
communication with the inhabitants of all the other places in 
Massachusetts. This example was followed by Virginia and 
other colonies. The consequence was that in England, in 1780, 
many persons who had great sympathy for the petitioning 
movement against the Crown and a venal Parliament, were 
afraid that the committees and associations, when once formed, 
might be launched on an incline which it would be difficult to 
reascend; and in four counties no committees were appointed. 
While the petitions from the counties which had been lodged 
in the House of Commons were awaiting their turn to be 
examined, and Burke was delivering his famous speech on the 
plan of economic reform, the chairmen of several committees 
who had come up to London invited the county associations to 
send delegates to deliberate on the best mode of ensuring the 
success of the petitions and on other matters of importance. 
A letter enclosed with the convening circular expressed the 
hope that “each county, city, and town, having first associated 
separately and apart, on grounds which have received the 
general approbation, the whole body of the petitioners in due 
time may be collected and firmly consolidated in one great 
‘National Association.’ The obvious consequence of which 
must be certain and complete success to the constitutional 
reform proposed by the people.”? The delegates arrived and 
by a considerable display of energy succeeded in creating 
alarm in more than one quarter. “The Committees of Asso- 
ciation began to give great alarm. They voted themselves a 


Dictionary also derives ‘‘caucus’’ from the calkers, explains that, according 
to a version transmitted to him by persons living at the time, the term 
“caucus ’’ was applied to political meetings in an invidious sense in order to 
connect them with the lowest class of men in the social scale who attended 
the meetings of calkers, or met in the calking house or caulkhouse. Accord- 
ing to others the nickname of ‘‘caucus’”’ is supposed to have been given to 
private gatherings of politicians in Boston, in this case also by a modifica- 
tion of the word ‘‘ caulker,’’ because they held their meetings in the caulker’s 
club, or in a room which had formerly been used as a meeting-place for the 
calkers (cf. Ripley and Dana’s American Cyclopzdia, and a discussion on 
the subject in Notes and Queries, 1885, Vol. XI, pp. 309 and 451; Vol. XII, 
pp. 54, 194, and 336). 1Chr. Wyvill, Political Papers, York, 1796, I, 114. 


122 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





right of considering and deciding on questions pending in 
Parliament, and of censuring or approving the part taken 
by particular members,” writes Horace Walpole in his 
“ Journal.”! The attitude of the delegates was anything but 
conducive to the success of the petitions, which in the end were 
put on one side. But the county associations would not give 
up the struggle, and in the following year, under a new Par- 
liament, they returned to the charge. On this occasion several 
members of Parliament on the Opposition side of the House, 
such as Fox and General Burgoyne, were among the delegates. 
When the plan of economic reform proposed for a second time 
by Burke was rejected by the House of Commons, the dele- 
gates, or rather a section of them, appeared on the scene in 
person with a petition to Parliament. Many of the dele- 
gates recoiled before the apprehensions which had already 
been aroused by the presence in the capital of a representa- 
tive delegation deliberating side by side with Parliament. 
To allay these misgivings, the other delegates who had signed 
the petition presented it in their own name, dropping the title 
of delegates. In spite of this precaution, the legality of the 
petition gave rise to a very animated debate in the House. 
Besides the Ministerial majority, which of course vehemently 
denounced the committees and the delegates, several indepen- 
dent members expressed the opinion that the associations and 
the meetings of the delegates were unconstitutional; that the 
members of the House were the proper delegates of the people; 
that all plans of reform should emanate from the House; that, 
apart from the extremely laudable object of the petition and 
the undoubted respectability of the delegates, the bolder course 
would be to take the earliest opportunity of resisting an extra- 
constitutional intervention of this kind rather than allow the 
creation of a dangerous precedent.? Fox, in a show speech, de- 
livered a panegyric on the associations, by connecting them with 
the time-honoured struggles for lberty, and pronounced the 
action of the delegates not only legal but highly meritorious con- 
sidering the circumstances under which it had taken place. Ad- 
dressing himself to the legal aspect of the case, he asked to be 


1 Journal of the Reign of King George ITI., Lond. 1859, Vol. II, p. 378. 
2 See the speeches of Coke, Powys, Sir Horace Mann, Rolle (Parliamentary 
History, Vol. XXII, pp. 144, 157, 196). 


FIRST CHAP.| ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 123 








shown the law which prohibited the people from appointing 
delegates to live in London for the purpose of watching the 
conduct of their representatives. We are told, he remarked, 
that the committees, the associations, and the delegates want 
to overthrow the Constitution, but the contrary is the truth; 
for are not the delegates rendering homage to the Sovereign 
and to the omnipotence of Parliament by applying to them for - 
the redress of their grievances?’ The reply was an adroit one, 
but it was obviously somewhat beside the real question, which 
was not whether the extra-constitutional organization was con- 
trary to or in conformity with the letter of the law, but whether, 
in view of its consequences, and of the reaction which it might 
bring about in political life, it was compatible with the regu- 
lar working of the representative system. General Burgoyne, 
without specifying the point in this way, bluntly took his 
stand on political ground: he declared that there were mo- 
ments when resistance to the supreme power was a duty, 
that cases of the kind had existed in times when the encroach- 
ments of the Crown were avowed and obvious, that in the 
present case the Crown was aiming at absolute power by clan- 
destine methods, and that the only point to be considered was 
whether the delegates conscientiously believed that they were 
doing their duty in promoting the plan of associations.” The 
great lawyer Dunning (afterwards the first Lord Ashburton) 
summed up the debate. In_his opinion, the right of form- 
ing associations was a corollary of the right of petitioning; if 
the citizens had the right of forwarding petitions to the Leg- 
islature, they were entitled to unite for this purpose. To de- 
scend to particular cases, this or that association was lawful or 
not according to the intention with which it had been formed 
or the aim which it pursued. There might of course be illegal 
or criminal associations, but even these latter might under cer- 
tain circumstances be justifiable. If the House of Commons, 
forgetful of its origin and of its duty, became the slave of the 
Crown and the Lords or of one of these powers, it would be 
perfectly legal for the people of Great Britain to resume their 
just share in the Legislature; and the means employed for this 
purpose, whether associations, remonstrances, or force, would be 
not only lawful but meritorious. On this particular occasion 


1 Parliam. History, Vol. XXII, pp. 144, 176. 2 Ibid. p. 157. 

















124 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





all the proceedings had been conducted with calm and dignity ; 
the sole object of the members of the associations was to sup- 
port, by legal and constitutional measures, the contents of the 
petitions presented to Parliament for the redress of grievances. 
As for the delegates, their action was confined to the mission 
entrusted to them, namely that of maintaining the definite 
objects of the petition; if they went beyond this they would 
exceed their powers and lose their character of delegates.’ 


II 


- Parliament refused to examine the petitions promoted by 
the “corresponding committees,” and the latter soon vanished 
from the scene. But when the triumph of the Revolution in 
France revived ideas of liberty, the movement for the Reform 
of the House of Commons reappeared, and associations were 
again formed for the purpose of carrying it to a successful 
issue. These societies, composed chiefly of workmen, soon be- 
came the organ of the extreme section of opinion, and the in- 
strument of a democratic agitation throughout England. They 
spent a good deal of their time in exchanging congratulatory ad- 
dresses with the French Convention, the Commune of Paris, and 
the French clubs. The English associations imitated the French 
revolutionists in everything. Their members took the name 
of “citizens,” and they manufactured the word “ citizeness” 
in order to give the same appellation td women.? Their pro- 
grammes and their declarations were couched in the same high- 
flown style, decked with the flowers of the political language 
of the day: tyranny, national will, humanity, nature, etc.2 The 


1 Parliam. History, Vol. XXII, p. 198. 

2In the United States, where the same republican masquerade was then 
still more freely indulged in, the variation citess was introduced (‘‘ Both men 
and women seemed for the time to have put away their wits and gone mad 
with republicanism. ... At Boston every man was soon calling his neighbor 
Citizen and his wife Citess.’’— J. B. McMaster, A History of the People of the 
United States, N.Y. 1893, Vol. II, p. 94). : 

8 The following is a specimen taken from the manual of the ‘‘ Birming- 
ham Society for Constitutional Information’’ (Printed for the Society, 
MDCCXCII) : ‘‘In order to do away with privilege and oppression, the inten- 
tion of our meeting is to establish a brotherhood of affection with the whole 
human race for the promotion of knowledge, and to establish love and good- 
will among all men, the free citizens of the earth.... We... call to 
mind the sentiments which nature has engraved in the heart of every citizen, 


FIRST CHAP.] ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 125 





avowed object_of these organizations was still parliamentary 
reform, but they declined to admit it on any basis other than 
thatof universal suffrage." The moderates, whose views were 
becoming more and more disregarded in the reformist camp, 
did not, however, abandon the cause of reform. They founded 
the “ Society of the Friends of the People” on their own account, 
but refused to co-operate with the democratic organizations 
which invited them to join a national convention. The extreme 
moderation of the “Friends of the People” did not protect 
them from the general disapproval incurred by the political 
associations. Fox himself repudiated them from his seat in 
Parliament, while remaining faithful to the reform of the rep- 
resentation. They were all the more strongly denounced by 
Pitt and Burke, who waged war against “ French principles.” 
The extravagant and occasionally somewhat seditious language 
of the “ corresponding societies ” alarmed the ruling classes and 
contributed not a little to make them plunge headlong into re- 
action. The Government adopted a repressive policy; it com- 
menced proceedings against the members of the societies and 
directed prosecution after prosecution against the Press. After 
an enquiry into the societies, conducted by a secret committee 
of the House of Commons, Pitt obtained the suspension of 
the Habeas Corpus Act from the House (1794). In the follow- 
ing year the Government carried a Bill restricting the liberty 
of public meeting.” The popular organizations, hampered in 
their operations by this law, took refuge in mystery. <A _net- 
work of secret associations spread over England. They main- 
tained an active correspondence, organized a secret system of 
publication, distributed writings clandestinely, and posted up 
seditious placards. Pitt passed a bill suppressing some asso- 
































and which take a new force when solemnly recognized by all; for a nation to 
love liberty it is sufficient that she knows it, and to be free it is sufticient 
that she wills it.’’ 

1In the Parliament thus reformed, declared the ‘‘ London Corresponding 
Society,’’ ‘‘ there would be no party debates, the interests of the people being 
one; long speeches much diminished, honest men seeking reason not oratory.”’ 
The rest is on a par with this. 

2 No meeting of more than fifty persons (except county and borough meet- 
ings duly called) should be held for considering petitions and addresses, for 
alterations of matters in Church and State, or for discussing any grievance, 
without previous notice to a Magistrate, who should attend to prevent any 
proposition or discourse tending to bring into hatred or contempt the Sovereign 
or the government and constitution (Seditious Meetings Act, 30 Geo. III, c.8). 


126 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp Part 





ciations by name and declaring illegal all societies the members 
of which had to take an oath not required by law, all those 
with members or committees unknown to the whole society and 
not entered on its books, and all those which were composed of 
distinct sections or branches. 

When, towards the close of the war with Napoleon, and in 
the years which immediately followed it, the distress produced 
by the fall in wages and the high price of corn rekindled dis- 
content among the masses, they took it into their heads that 
the remedy lay in the introduction of universal suffrage and 
annual Parliaments. To obtain these reforms, a vast_organiza- 
tion was set on foot in the form of clubs which were started 
in almost every village, ‘“ Hampden clubs,” ‘‘ Spencean clubs,” 
- ete.’ The Legislature intervened once more, and the repressive 
measures directed against the “corresponding societies ” were 
followed (in 1817) by new ones placing obstacles in the way of 
the appointment and the co-operation of delegates of various 
societies.’ 


Tit 


The political organizations were not rooted out. The move- 
ment retired below the surface, but only until the next occasion 
for popular disturbances. When the price of bread was rising, 
the starving masses began to move, the demands for parlia- 
mentary reform reappeared, and with them the secret asso¢ia- 
tions. In 1830, a great economic crisis broke out. The middle 
class, having become conscious of its importance through its 
wonderful success in the field of industry, on this occasion 
joined the masses in the agitation for reform. Organizations 
were formed in broad daylight, the membership of which was 
no longer confined to workmen, and which boldly confronted 
monopol d_aristocratic privileges with ri justice. 
Their idea was that “they may have the reform which has 
been proposed, if they will show that they really desire to 
have it; and to show this desire they must form themselves 
into unions, and endeavour to procure as many petitions 
to Parliament and memorials to the King as they can.” 
































1 Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, of the 19th 
-February, 1817 (Hansard, XXXV, 439-445). 2 57 Geo. III, c. 19. 

8 Letter of Francis Place to G. Grote (Personal Life of Mr. Grote, p. 69, 
Lond. 1873). 


FIRST CHAP.]| ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 127 





Birmingham became the centre of the agitation. It was there 
that arose, in 1830, the first “general political union between 
the lower and the middle classes of the people,” which was soon 
imitated in all the large towns of the Kingdom. The Birming- 
ham Union repudiated all notion of violence, it simply claimed 
to “produce the peaceful display of an immense organized 
moral power, which cannot be despised or disregarded.”' The 
Union sent up petitions to the King; it asked him to dis- 
miss the Ministry, which was hostile to reform During the 
discussion of the Reform Bill in Parliament it organized 
demonstrations in which members marched in procession wear- 
ing their special badges, and preceded by bands of music. The 
Unions kept up the agitation in every quarter with the great- 
est energy. Ata meeting held in London it was resolved, in 
order to bring the various Unions in the country into line, to 
form a confederation, the “National Political Union,” with a 
political council sitting in the capital. But the central organi- 
zation, which was controlled by representatives from the work- 
ing classes, speedily fell into the hands of men of extreme 
opinions, and they very soon seriously compromised it. The 
Government became alarmed, and a Royal proclamation 
(of the 22d November, 1831) declared as illegal and un- 
constitutional all “ political associations composed of separate 
bodies with various divisions and subdivisions under leaders 
with a gradation of rank and authority and subject to 
the general control and direction of a superior commit- 
tee or council.”? The Unions then gave up their system of 
affiliation, but none the less continued their agitation until 
the Lords had yielded and the Reform Bill had become law. 
At one moment the Birmingham Union threatened to march 
on London, if the Lords persisted in their opposition. 

After the victory the middle class hastened to leave the 
Unions, and they soon died out. Their atmosphere was too 
democratic for the middle classes, who, moreover, had obtained 


their object. The great Whig leaders now spoke of their old 

popular allies, the “Birmingham fellows,” with_a touch of dis- 

dain,? and they turned up their noses when reminded of the 
1J. A. Langford, A Century of Birmingham Life, Lond. 1868, II, 536. 


2 Annual Register, 1831, p. 297. 
8 Greville Memoirs, 4th ed. Vol. II, p. 215. 





128 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp Part 





organizations which had helped to secure for them Reform and 
power.! The working classes having been left out of the fran- 
chise, found themselves, moreover, in no better material condi- 
tion. Their sufferings were intense, and, with a naive belief in 
political panaceas, they recommenced the agitation for universal 
suffrage. A “ Workingmen’s Association ” was started, and, with 
the aid of the Radical members of the House of Commons, they 
framed “The People’s Charter,” and carried the agitation into 
the country. The movement assumed enormous dimensions, 
and has become famous under the name of “Chartism.” 
The political Union of Birmingham, as well as those of sey- 
eral other towns, was revived. The Chartists sent delegates 
to London from all the great manufacturing centres; they 
formed themselves into a national convention (in 1839) and 
the “People’s Parliament,” as it was styled, held its sittings 
side by side with the Parliament of the Realm. The conven- 
tion eagerly got up the great petition with 1,200,000 signatures. 
In 1840, the Chartist organization underwent a fresh develop- 
ment; at Manchester the “ National Charter Association” was 
founded, which was soon joined by four hundred affiliated 
societies, with a very large number of members. However, the 
triumph of the extreme party_and its violent propaganda had 
alienated public opinion from Chartism; the movement had no 
effect whatever on the constituted authorities, and wasted its 
strength in futile efforts. The success of the Revolution of 
1848 in France gave for a while fresh life to the hopes of the 
Chartists. They played their great card of the monster 
petition with 6,000,000 signatures, the ignominious failure of 
which is a matter of history. After Parliament had refused to 
take it into consideration, the Chartist convention, which was 
sitting in London, moved to Birmingham. Soon afterwards 
it disappeared in the break-up of the Chartist movement. 

But the agitation for a fresh extension of the franchise sur- 
vived, Birmingham still remaining the prime mover init. A 
network of societies for keeping up the propaganda spread 
from this centre. Under the titles of “ Household Suffrage 











1 See the conversation between Lord Grey and the painter Haydon, who 
proposed to paint a picture of a public meeting held by the political Union 
(Life of B. Haydon, Vol. Il, p. 344, quoted in Bunce, History of the Corpora- 
tion of Birmingham, I, 130). 


FIRST CHAP.] ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 129 





Societies,” “Complete Suffrage Societies,” “Reform Associa- 
tions,” ete., these organizations existed in various places, with 
more or less vitality. But they were very far from possessing 
the importance of the “Political Unions.” Their influence 
was not very great, except in some parts of the North. 
Eventually the Reform Act of 1867 deprived them of their 
raison d’étre. , 


Ly 


e reformers had not been alone in using the weapon of 
association, tirer-opporents had done the same on more than 
one occasion. About 1793, when the democratic propaganda was 
in full swing, many societies had been formed for assisting the 
Government in discovering and punishing seditious writings 
or speeches. They acted by means of spies and informers. 
The first of these associations was the “Society for the Protec- 
tion of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Level- 
lers.”! In 1820, the “Constitutional Association” was founded 
for a similar object.?, Subsequently, when the agitation assumed 
a more peaceful character, there arose “constitutional associa- 
tions” which opposed the extension of the franchise by less 
reprehensible methods. 

It_was chiefly religious passions, however, which supplied_a 
pretext for reactionary organizations. In consequence of an 
Act of Parliament which conceded a certain amount of tolera- 
tion to the Catholics (in 1778), fanatical Protestants started an 
agitation for obtaining the repeal of the law. A large number 
of Protestant associations and committees were formed. They 
became a hotbed of an odious propaganda among the lower 
orders, carried on by speeches, sermons, and incendiary hand- 
bills. It was as if political association, which had barely 
sprung into life, was anxious to show that, if it could serve as 
the mouthpiece of enlightened opinion, it could still more 
easily become the tool of base passions and of a malignant 
fanaticism. The Protestant associations formed a sort.of con- 
federation, with Lord George Gordon at its head, and spread 
over the whole country. After a meeting of the Association in 


1J. Adolphus, History of England from the Accession of George III to 
1783, Lond. 1802, Vol. V, p. 225. 
2Spencer Walpole, History of England, II, 19; Erskine May, The Consti- 
tutional History of England, Lond. 1865, II, 206. 
VOL. I— K 

















130 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp parr 





London, at which Gordon presided, a frenzied mob marched on 
the Houses of Parliament, broke into the lobbies, and nearly 
forced its way into the House of Commons while it was sitting. 
Then for the space of a week the rioters made barbarous havoe 
in the capital, burnt the chapels of the Catholic embassies, 
broke open the prisons, and destroyed private houses. 

A few years later a similar movement arose in Ireland. 
Bands of Protestants, over-zealous for their religion, took up 
arms against their Catholic fellow-citizens. After defeating 
their opponents they kept up their organization and formed 
themselves into societies for maintaining Protestant ascendency. 
These associations, known as “Orange Lodges,” spread into 
England and multiplied there to a great extent. 

The Irish Catholics in their turn resorted to organization, and 
after many attempts, which were continually hampered by the 
English Government, created a formidable organization for up- 
holding the disregarded and violated rights of their nation and 
their religion. This was the “Catholic Association,” formed in 
1823. Possessing ramifications throughout the country, it set 
up as a rival power to the Government and assumed all its 
powers. Its ascendency over the Catholic population was 
complete, and it openly defied the English authorities. The 
latter were finally obliged to yield, and the Act of Emancipa- 
tion was carried in 1829. 


Vv 


This was the first ti reat_legislative measure was 


forced on the country through the pressure of a_ political or- 
ganization. But it had only achieved this result by a demon- 
stration of the material strength which it had succeeded in 
bringing into the field: the English Government had yielded 
when confronted by the prospect of a civil war. ‘ 

afterwards, in the agitation for the Reform Bill, the Political 
Unions were an important factor, and, like the Catholic Asso- 
ciation, helped to incline the scale towards their own side by 
intimidation, by a display of physical force. It was only in the 
agitation which led to the third great reform, the repeal of the 
Corn Laws, that the political Association which took the lead in 
the movement used moral force as its_main weapon, the power 
of convictions which it brought home tothe mind. In the field 
































First CHAP.] ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 131 





of philanthropy, association had already succeeded in winning 
peaceful victories. The “ Anti-Slavery Association,” one of the 
greatest ever known in England, had converted public opinion 
and the constituted authorities simply by its indefatigable 
propaganda. It was this body which brought about the aboli- 
tion of the slave trade and afterwards of slavery itself. But 


in the sphere of politics, the Anti-Corn Law League was the 
Morais SULTS GSS DST EXAM pIS OFA politicalassoclation 
contributing to the legislative triumph of an idea by instil- 
ling it into the national conscience. The masses remained 
indifferent to the movement during the early years of its 
existence. The workmen, still engrossed in the pursuit of the 
panacea of universal suffrage, looked on all other agitation as 
an unfair competition. The leaders of the League, on their 
side, although very favourable to the introduction of univer- 
sal suffrage in principle, deemed it expedient to limit the 
agitation, to keep the question of economic liberty distinct be- 
fore the public'mind. Consequently the League, not having 
the passions of the masses at its disposal and not making 
any appeal to them, was obliged to lean, materially and 
morally, on the middle class, which was directly interested in 
the question of commercial freedom, and to conduct the cam- 
paign by means of discussion alone. It was this last point 
which gave the League its distinctive character. In fact, its 
labours constituted an immense persuasive agitation. It sent 
forth a body of public speakers to carry on the free-trade 
propaganda, who traversed the country in all directions. Cob- 
den, Bright, and the other leaders of the League were indefati- 
gable; they travelled unceasingly from one end of the country 
to the other, wherever there were minds to be convinced or 
consciences to be won. At the instigation of the League asso- 
ciations were formed in all the manufacturing centres, meetings 
of delegates were held in every district, the question was dis- 
cussed in all its aspects and on every occasion. At the same 
time, the League was engaged in conducting a vast economic 
enquiry. Its agents and adherents had to collect infor- 
mation on the state of trade, the rate of wages, the growth 
of pauperism, and generally on everything which affected the 
means of subsistence. As this information poured unceasingly 
into headquarters, an immense provision of facts and argu- 














182 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





ments accumulated at Manchester, which the League took care 
to turn to the best account in its propaganda. The more stub- 
born the resistance of the Protectionists, the greater became 
the zeal of the Leaguers in their missionary effort. They under- 
took “a campaign against every elector in the Kingdom” by 
literature distributed from house to house,’ and by lectures. 
From the towns they passed into the country districts, and 
there they endeavoured to drive the idea of free trade into the 
heads of the-farmers. The Protectionists tried to counteract 
the League by the same methods, by founding associations, 
but they lacked vitality and spontaneity ; the farmers attended 
the meetings of these associations as if by compulsion; the 
stewards and agents of the landlords used to come to their 
houses and fetch them to the meetings.” 

The landlords, entrenched behind the majority in Parlia- 
ment, continued to resist; but the mind of the country was 
made up, thanks to the League, and only a shock was needed 
to make the fruit drop from the tree. The bad harvest which 
supervened in Ireland supplied this. The inevitable famine 
and the determination of the League not to dissolve until the 
duties on corn were abolished made the Protectionists give 
way, and legislative sanction was accorded to the measure 
which had already been approved by the national conscience. 


VI 


Thus the three great reforms which have renovated England, 
religious freedom, parliamentary reform, and economic liberty, 
were obtained under pressure from extra-constitutional organi- 
zations. On each occasion their interference with the legislature 
assumed the aspect of an exceptional case justified by the quasi- 
revolutionary features of the situation*®: that is that public 














1In 1843, 500 agents were engaged in distributing pamphlets throughout 
the towns; they visited 24 counties and 187 towns, and distributed more than 
9,000,000 printed papers. 

2A. Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, II, 218, 219. 

8 And even those who led the struggle or rallied the masses to it were the 
first to plead extenuating circumstances. We are already acquainted with 
the observations submitted to Parliament on this point in 1780. Fifty years 
later, when extra-parliamentary agitation had had time to become familiar 
to English political life, in 1832, the champions of Reform admitted that the 
formation of the Political Unions was unconstitutional, but that the reformers 


FIRST CHAP.] ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS 133 


+ 





opinion was not allowed to assert itself freely and fully within 
the boundaries of the constitution. The object of each _move- 
ment the edress of_a rievance ; ; its aim was specified 
Brgwetoudl reno destined_to come to an end = the 
triumph of the particular cause which had called it into life. 
The organization of opinion in the country did not tend to sup- 
plant its constitutional organ. On the contrary, the object_of 
the _first_attempts at_extra-constitutional organization was to 
make Parliament more independent; and the latter, when once 
rehabilitated and raised to its ideal level, was to remain undis- 
puted master of the situation. The movement of opinion was 
directed, not against Parliament and constitutional government, 
but against the factions which had monopolized them. In fact, 
at the first awakening of opinion under George III, Garbinniian 
is resorted to as a means of forming a patriotic party with the 
object of reminding the coterie which has a majority in Parlia- 
ment and a monopoly of power, of their duty. Corruption 
disappears from Parliament; the basis of national represen- 
tation is widened by the Reform Act of 1832, but the ap- 
proaches to Government, to the Legislature, are guarded by 
parties which do not reflect opinion with its unceasing aspira- 
tions towards an improved moral and material existence, but 
are more in the nature of traditional sets, stereotyped in their 
petty ideas and their paltry passions, against which every new 
current of opinion is powerless. The struggle for economic 
liberty brought out this situation in all its clearness, and all 
the efforts of the League, from the very first day, were in the 
direction of keeping the question outside parliamentary parties, 
of lifting it above them. The organ of the League, the “ Anti- 
Corn Law Circular,” roundly declared that_all political factions 
were equally dishonest_and_ corrupt, that the adherents of the 
abolition of the duties on corn would never allow their great 
cause to b be converted into an official cry, that they would con- 
tinue, without swerving from their path, to appeal to the na-_ 







































































had been provoked. See with reference to this the History of the Thirty 
Years’ Peace of H. Martineau, whose position in the Reform camp is well 
known (‘‘ There was no question about the fact but only about the justifica- 
tion of it. No one denies that occasions may and do occur when the assertion 
of a nation’s will against either a corrupt government or a tyrannical party 
is virtuous and absolutely required by patriotic duty.’’ Vol. II, p. 25). 


134 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srEconp part 





fion_at large, convinced as they were that the repeal of the 

protective duties would never be granted by the one or the 
other set of “ pettifoggers,’ ” of whom the country was alter- 
nately the victim.” Cobden held identical opinions. While 
fighting the Tory Government with the utmost energy, he 
wrote to his brother, in 1842: “The worst danger is of the 
Whigs coming in again too soon. The hacks would be up on 
their hind legs, and at their old prancing tricks again, imme- 
diately they smelt the Treasury crib.”* The fall of the Min- 
istry might have put the country on the wrong scent, whereas 
it would only have been the substitution of one coterie for an- 
other; and the object was to strike a blow at cliques in general. 
John Bright had the same preoccupation.*? Cobden was never 
weary of declaring that he was just as ready to accept reform 
from the hands of Sir Robert Peel as from Lord John Russell. 
And when Peel was on the point of yielding, and the Whigs 
broke out into exultation, Cobden could not help exclaiming: 
“ What a bold farce it is now to attempt to parade the Whig 
party as the Free Traders par excellence! I will be no party 
to such a fraud as the attempt to build up its ruined popularity 
upon a question in which the Whig aristocracy and proprietors 
in the counties either take no interest, or, if so, only to resist 
it. Isee no advantage, but much danger, to our cause from the 
present efforts to set up the old party distinctions.” * 

In the_end the law for the complete abolition of the corn 
duties was_passed. It was a triumph ra-constitutional 
organization over arties representing a small 
fraction of the nation. As the special object of the League 
was attained, its dissolution was at hand. But Cobden saw 
with regret that the fountain-head of the abuse which he had 
striven against would be untouched if the old party system 
survived. He applied to Peel, his enemy of the day before. 
He approached him for the first time in his life. In an urgent 
appeal, he implored him to put an end to party government 
by placing himself at the head of the whole middle class: 
“There must be an end of the juggle of parties, the mere 
representatives of tradition.” ° 




































1J. Morley, Life of R. Cobden, Lond. 1881, Vol. I, p. 151. 
2 Tbid. p. 241. 3 Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, Il, 25. 
4J. Morley, Life of Cobden, I, 363. 5 Ibid. 395. 


SECOND CHAPTER 
THE BEGINNINGS OF PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 
I 


THE parties, however, had_laid_ hands on the very weapon 

which was being used_against them , extra-parliamentary or or- 
ganization. The movement had begun somewhat late. For 
a long time parties had no distinct life of their own save 
in Parliament; in the country they barely existed as moral 
entities independently of the personages or families which 
were the embodiment of them. The language of the day only 
testified to the facts in using, instead of “Tory” and “Whig,” 
such expressions as “the Rutland interest,” “the Bedford 
interest,” etc. The voters simply represented the personal 
following of the rivals who fought the electoral duel; they 
were their retainers or sold themselves to them on the polling- 
day for money. In the counties the tenant followed his land- 
lord. When the estate changed hands, all the tenants changed 
their political complexion, if the new landlord did not belong 
to the same party as his predecessor. This occurred very often, 
even after the parliamentary reform of 1832.' The rural free- 
holders, who were more independent, generally gravitated in 
the orbit of the great nobleman who irradiated the neighbour- 
hood. Of the boroughs, several were directly dependent on 
territorial magnates, who owned them as private property or 
exerted a hereditary influence over them. Most of the other 
towns sold themselves at the elections, wholesale or in lots. 
The operations of sale and purchase were often conducted 
through the agency of organized bodies, sometimes public 











1 Even after 1832, the custom of asking the landlord’s permission to canvass 
his tenants had been continued. This permission was seldom granted (Report 
from the Select Committee on Bribery, 1835, Blue Books of 1835, Vol. VIU. 
p. 228). 

135 


136 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





bodies, such as municipalities, which made money out of 
their boroughs, sometimes voluntary organizations, which 
acted in the guise of non-political societies or even as societies 
without any legal existence.t Side by side with these 
juntas there sprang up occasionally, in a sporadic fashion 
and with an ephemeral existence, bona fide political organi- 
zations, in the form of clubs or committees, for supporting 
a particular candidate. 

But whatever the organs of electoral action, secret or 
avowed, municipal corporations, clubs or private agents, 
they represented local divisions and rivalries more than 
anything else. The only party organization on a_ basis 
approaching a_fational basis was in Parliament. Tis 
efforts were felt essentially within the walls of Parliament 
itself. The members who had secured election through the 
territorial influence or that of their patrons, or who bought 
their seats for ready money, were practically independent of 
their constituencies. The parliamentary parties would there- 
fore have wasted their time in trying to influence the electors. 
It was the members that the Government or the Opposition had 
to make sure of at all hazards. When the parliamentary cliques 
did not supply a sufficient number of followers to the Gov- 
ernment or the Opposition, the latter bought parliamentary 
boroughs directly on their own account, or assisted political 
friends engaged in electioneering with their own money. It 
is in this way that party organizations confined within the 
walls of Parliament came to extend their action, in a sub- 
sidiary fashion, over the country. After 1832 their _inter- 
vention increased_to_a considerable extent. It helped_to 
cover the country with a network of organizations which 
were destined to completely “alter the balance of power 
inside_the parties themselves. 


























1 Thus the first committee to enquire into electoral matters appointed in 
virtue of the Grenville Act (of 1776) disclosed the existence in a certain town 
of a Christian Club, formed ostensibly for purposes of charity, but which was 
really engaged in selling the borough at election times to the highest bidder, 
and which afterwards divided the money amongst its members. -Another 
instance discovered during the electoral enquiry of 1835, is the Blue 
Club or Committee, at Bristol, which, in return for votes, used its influence 
with the Government to obtain favours, appointments, and even pardons for 
offences against the revenue (Report on Bribery, 1835, p. 377). 


SECOND CHAP. ] PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 137 





ti 


The study of party organization in Parliament must therefore 
engage our attention in the first place. It was represented at 
that time, as in our own day, by the “ Whips” which each party 
has in the House of Commons. In fox-hunting language 
“Whip” denotes the huntsman’s assistant who whips in the 
pack of hounds; applied by analogy to the parliamentary 
hunting-field, this sporting term has in political language ac- 
quired a more complicated meaning, and one which is not so 
easy to explain. The shortest and most accurate definition of 
“ Whips” would perhaps be the following: stage-managers of 





companies who unite in acting the parliamentary play; stage- 
managers, and not directors. This last office is filled by the 
leaders, the Prime Minister or one of his colleagues, if he does 
not sit in the House of Commons himself, and the leader of 
the Opposition. The two chiefs act in broad daylight, and are 
responsible to the public; the Whips work in the dark, and 
are unknown to the mass of the public. The leaders lay down 
the main line of action, and exert themselves actively on great 
occasions. The Whips, who are initiated by the leaders into 
all the secrets of the plan of action, see that it is carried out, 
and keep an eye on the actors so as to ensure that each man is 
at his post and ready to play the part which has been allotted to 
him, whether it is a minor part or even that of a supernumerary. 
Being constantly in touch with the members in the lobbies, ete. 
of the House, the Whip is in a position to follow the current of 
opinion in the party; he reports thereon to the leader, nips in- 
cipient revolts in the bud, retails the leader’s views to the mem- 
bers of the party, and communicates to them the plans into which 
the leader thinks it expedient or necessary to initiate them. 
The authority of the Whip is of a purely moral nature; it is 
derived solely from the prestige of his position and from his 
tact. He must be acquainted with each member, know his 
weak and strong points, be able to talk him round, to coax 
him by smiles, by exhortations, by friendly remonstrances, by 
promises or other devices, such as invitations to the entertain- 
ments of the dukes and marquises of the party which he gets 
for members and their wives. Every day he must perform 
wonders of affability, of patience, and of firmness, in view of 





138 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sreconp parr 





the object which is the dream of a Whip’s whole existence : 
to keep the party united, compact, and in fighting order. 

When state policy and party strategy do not demand the 
attention of the Whip, he has his daily drudgery to perform, 
which is to mount guard over his men from one sitting to 
another. If he is the Government Whip, he is specially respon- 
sible for the regular working of the parliamentary machine. 
He must take care “to make a House” and “keep a 
House,” so that the Government bills or motions of the 
day can be discussed. He must have a reserve of members 
in the lobbies or in the smoking-room to take the place of those 
who have left the House, so as to stop the attempts of the 
other side to count it out. Still more necessary is it for him 
to have all his followers ready for the divisions. For the 
enemy is treacherous, and may plan a surprise and call a divi- 
sion unexpectedly. The Whip must act as watch-dog, and not 
allow members who want to dine out to leave the House. In 
any event he must know where to find them in case of need, 
and be able to warn them by telegram or special messenger. 
The fate of a ministry sometimes depends on the accuracy of 
his information of this kind, and on his rapidity of action. To 
prevent the debate from languishing the Whip must have a 
reserve of fluent speakers who can talk by the clock to enable 
those who are late to come in time for the division. The 
Whips of both parties often have to come to an understanding, 
as the parliamentary play is a piece with two dramatis per- 
sone. On great field-days they settle the order in which 
speakers are to address the House, fix the number of sittings 
to be devoted to the debate, ete. 

The performance of these duties requires uncommon sup- 
pleness, but is compatible with perfect honesty in our day. 
In the beginning, on the other hand, this quality was a fatal 
objection; for the post was created for the corruption of mem- 
bers in the criminal sense of the word. Ministers bought their 
majority by payment of actual cash; they had a window in 
the House itself where members came to be paid for their votes 
after the division. The First Lord of the Treasury, having too 
much to do, created, in 1714, the office of political secretary to 
the Treasury to aid him in these financial operations. This 
official was called the Patronage Secretary, because, in his 


SECOND CHAP. | PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 139 





capacity of agent of corruption, he disposed of the patronage, 
that is to say, of appointments to Government offices. Places 
in the Custom House, the Post Office, and the Excise were the 
small electoral change which the Government distributed at 
the request of members to their electors. The Patronage Sec- 
retary had another name—that of “Secretary for Political 
Jobs.” This was in fact his principal business. “It is rather 
a roguish office,” as Wilberforce remarked in the presence of 
Steele, just as the latter was about to take up the appointment. 
Distributing their allowance among the members of the party, 
the Patronage Secretary brought them up to the vote like a flock 
of sheep, goaded them on, and had become their “ Whipper-in.” 
The opposite party had to adopt a similar mode of discipline, 
and it also introduced the office of Whip or Whipper-in. The 
Patronage Secretary had to supply the Government with a 
majority as cheaply as possible. For a long time, at any rate 
up to Pitt’s accession to power, he worked directly on the 
members, and bought each of them individually. When, owing 
to the improvement in Parliamentary manners, these transac- 
tions perceptibly diminished or disappeared altogether, the Pat- 
ronage Secretary and his vis-a-vis on the other side, the Opposition 
Whip, bought constituencies, that is, seats in Parliament, for 
friends who were to vote as they were told. The Whippers-in 
negotiated with corporations or private individuals who had 
seats to sell, or, in “contested” elections,! sent down their candi- 
dates well supplied with the sinews of war. The Government 
Whip was in the best position for operations of this kind. He 
had secret service money at his disposal. George III contrib- 
uted largely to it from his civil list. The amelioration of man- 
ners made itself felt here, too, and, after the elections of 1806, 
Lord Granville was able to publicly announce that not a guinea 
of public money had been spent on the election campaign. 
The Patronage Secretary had discovered another expedient. 
He had bought boroughs cheap, below the market price, from 
friends of the Government, paying them the difference in titles 
or other favours at the disposal of the Government. Then he 


1 A vote is not always taken at elections; if there is only one candidate, he 
is declared elected without a poll. A poll is held only when there is more 
than one candidate for the seat. In the former case, the election is called 
“uncontested ”’; in the latter, it is styled ‘‘ contested.” 


140 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





had resold his seats at the price of the day, and with the well- 
understood obligation for the buyers to vote with the Govern- 
ment. The money made in this speculation was used to buy 
additional seats or to help friendly candidates engaged in con- 
tested elections. As long as the purchase and sale of seats in 
the market and the traffic with corporations lasted, the Patron- 
age Secretary and the Opposition Whip took an active share 
in it on behalf of their respective parties. This is how the 
organization of parliamentary parties as represented by the 
Whips worked outside Parliament. 


III 


It_ was not till after the Reform that regular party organi- 
zations arose in the country. The Act of 1832 was the direct 
occasion of them. The Reform Bill, which had altered the 
constitutional machinery, also prescribed new methods for its 
working; but in spite of all the care bestowed on the point, sev- 
eral gaps were left, especially as regards the preparation of the 
electoral lists. Before 1832, there was no register of electors at 
all, and no documents of any kind to prove their qualification. 
The official who presided over the elections (returning officer) 
checked the claims of persons who came forward to vote at 
the poll itself. Consequently the polling for the election of a 
member to Parliament lasted for months. But as this proced- 
ure became impossible with the increase in the number of 
electors entailed by the Reform Act, the Legislature, when 
sanctioning the extension of the suffrage, made arrangements 
for the formation of electoral lists. This matter having been 
settled in great detail, the Act of 1832 left the execution of the 
provisions to the representatives of parochial self-government. 
The parish overseers of the poor, who were selected annually 
from among its inhabitants by the justices of the peace, for 
the assessment and collection of the poor rate of the locality, 
were entrusted by the law with the duty of keeping the 
electoral lists. The Legislature thought they would be able to 
discharge this duty satisfactorily, because in their capacity of 
local taxation agents they had information concerning every 
person entitled to the vote by his property qualification. 

This was only partly the case. True, every holding situated in 





SECOND CHAP. ] PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 141 





the parish being ratable to the poor, the occupiers of holdings of 
the letting value of at least £10, to whom the Reform Bill had 
just granted the suffrage, necessarily figured on the overseers’ 
lists. But the occupation of a holding was not the sole condition 
attached to the right of voting; there were other electoral qual- 
ifications besides. To find out the holders of them, the overseer 
had to call on them by public notice to make themselves known. 
The electoral register having been prepared in this way, on the 
strength of information which reached the overseers from vari- 
ous sources, was corrected by the representations of private 
individuals if the latter thought fit to make them. Each elector 
had the right to lodge with the overseer a claim, if his name 
had been left out, or an objection to the admission on the register 
of the fellow-citizens who appeared to him not to possess the 
necessary qualifications. The disputes to which this gave rise 
were referred to the Revising Barrister, a member of the Bar 
appointed annually by the judge of the circuit to hold the 
registration court, in which the parties appeared as in a court 
of law fora civil suit. The Revising Barrister was empowered 
to settle the register by admitting well-founded claims and ob- 
jections.' An appeal lay from his decision to a parliamentary 
committee, and since 1843 to the Court of Common Pleas. 

This system, which rested to such a large extent on private 
initiative, was evidently framed on the assumption that this 
initiative would be sufficiently active to secure the regular 
preparation of the electoral register. In practice, the electors 
displayed the most complete indifference on the subject. The 
electioneering manners and customs before 1832 were little cal- 
culated to develop a sentiment of electoral duty or the habit 
of spontaneous action in the voter. The rank and file of the 
voters, ignored and slightly despised by the ruling classes, 
became all at once an object of their solicitude when election 
time came on. Then they were canvassed, wheedled, or intim- 
idated on behalf of some grand seigneur or of a wealthy candi- 
date who spent money lavishly. As soon as the voting was 
over, the voter sank back into political obscurity, until he 


1 Before Reform was carried, the returning officer who had to examine the 
qualifications of the voters at the poll used to consult a barrister on doubtful 
points. The Act of 1832 only legalized the intervention of lawyers in a way 
by providing for the appointment of revising barristers. 


142 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sreconp part 





was once more fetched to be dragged to the poll. The mere 
promulgation of the Reform Bill could not alter manners and 
c n the spot. All that the new electoral machinery 
could do and ought to have done, was to make the material 
conditions attached to the right_of voting easy of fulfilment. 
The Act of 1832 did just the contrary by letting the State 
remain a stranger to the preparation of the register and leay- 
ing the duty to private individuals. A voter who had not 
known how to comply with the required formalities, who had 
not replied in good time to the objection which a fellow-citizen 
took it into his head to lodge against him in the overseer, or 
who had not thought fit to waste a day in supporting his claim 
before the Revising Barrister lost his right of voting ipso facto, 
for the year. And the following year he had to begin over 
again. In addition to this, the law had prescribed a registra- 
tion fee of one shilling, and many electors objected to it. 

‘The State had tustec 1 private initiative ; private _individ- 
uals did not trouble their heads about the matter; so the only 

ersons left to take an interest in the register were the members 
of Parliament or the candidates who were contesting the con- 
stituency. Clearly, it would have been of no use to them to 
make converts, to recruit adherents if these latter were pre- 
vented from voting for them because they had not established 
their right to vote in good time, owing to the complicated pro- 
cedure of registration. It was therefore in the interest of the 
riyal_candidates to help the electors to get over the formalities 
which lay between them and the vote. In doing so they not 
only secured the attendance of their thick-and- thin partisans 
at the poll, but also made recruits among the lukewarm, who 
naturally were inclined to give their vote to those who had 
procured it for them. Politicians soon grasped the new situ- 
ation created by the Act of 1832, and from and after this time 
party spirit _fastened_on the electoral U_register. Left to itself 
by the constituted authorities, registration became, so to speak, 
a gap through which the parties, hitherto confined to Parlia- 
ment, made their way into the constituencies and gradually 
covered the whole country with the network of their organi- 
zation. 










































































rty machiner i vas for_this purpose 
after 1832 was not of a uniform character. In some places the 


— 
——= 








SECOND CHAP. ] PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 143 





business of registration was for a long time left to the inter- 
vention of private individuals, under the hap-hazard operation 
of local circumstances, generally at the instigation and on behalf 
of members or interested candidates. But in several districts 
“ Registration Societies’ made their appearance. There were 
some of them in various places as early as 1832. These soci- 
eties were composed of adherents of the party who paid a 
subscription to defray the expenses of registration operations. 
The bigwigs of the party of course headed the list, and it was 
they who supplied the greater part of the funds. The staff of 
the Registration Societies collected information relating to the 
legal qualifications of the electors, placed themselves in com- 
munication with the overseers and appeared before the Revising 
Barristers to support the claims of their friends and oppose 
those of their political antagonists. The earliest Registration 
Societies do not seem to have had a very large number of 
members. A good many electors, especially those engaged in 
trade, did not like to parade political preferences for fear of 
losing customers belonging to the opposite party. The threat 
of withdrawing custom from shop-keepers if they voted for the 
other side was one of the commonest and most effective weap- 
ons of political propaganda at that time. This was why the 
Registration Societies had secret members who paid the sub- 
scription, but who were not entered on the lists.'| For the 
same reason, a good many electors declined to be placed on the 
electoral register and chose to forego their right of voting.? 


IV 


The period which immediately succeeded the Reform Bill 
was also marked by the appearance of central party organiza- 
tions, the influence and activity of which were destined to 
radiate from London over the whole country. The first of them 
was the Zarlton Club, founded by the Conservatives. Political 
clubs were not unknown in England before this. Their origin 
goes back to the seventeenth century ; it is almost contemporary 
with the introduction of the use of coffee into England and with 
the establishment of coffee-houses, which speedily became places 
for social meeting and for political and other intercourse. In 





1 Report on Bribery, 1835, p. 183. 2 Ibid. p. 400. 


144 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srconp part 





1659 the club “Rota” was founded in one of these coffee- 
houses; its frequenters, Republicans bent on free discus- 
sion, indulged in regular political debates followed by voting 
by ballot. Harrington, the author of “ Oceana,” was a leading 
figure at these meetings, and apparently it was his favourite 
scheme of rotation in office which gave the club its name. 
This club as well as those of other shades of political 
opinion (the “Rump Clubs” of the Jacobites, the “Calf’s 
Head Clubs” of the Whigs, etc.) did not live long. But at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the great outburst 
of clubs under Queen Anne, political clubs reappeared. They 
were composed of a knot of political friends who met in certain 
taverns to dine well and drink hard. During the second half 
of the eighteenth century they assumed a more definite polit- 
ical character on the pattern of party divisions in Parliament. 
One famous tavern was frequented by the Opposition, another 
was a resort of the Ministerialists. Gibbon, who belonged to 
the latter, has left a not very edifying description of the con- 
vivial gatherings of the Tory club which met at the “Cocoa 
Tree Tavern” in St. James’ Street. These clubs, however, 
like the non-political clubs, had no separate existence in the 
present sense of the word “club”; they had no premises of their 
own, and no.fixed number of members paying a subscription 
in order to procure the advantages of a decent common es-’ 
tablishment. They were meetings of a more or less open and 
casual character. Real clubs, as we understand them nowa- 
days, that is, clubs on the basis of subscription and formal 
admission of members, did not make their appearance till the 
nineteenth century. Established in the first instance to meet 
the requirements of sociability and the demand for comfort in 
a permanent fashion, clubs in this new aspect were soon des- 
tined to supply a base of operations for politicians.? 

During the Reform Bill agitation, when the advanced Re- 
formers started their “ Political Unions,” the Tories, felt the 
need of closing their ranks and uniting for a common object. 


1 (Cf. E. F. Robinson, The Early History of Coffee Houses in England, Lond. 
1893; W.C. Sidney, Social Life in England from the Restoration to the Revo- 
lution, Lond. 1892, pp. 409-424, 483; W.C. Sidney, England and the English 
in the 18th Century, Lond. 1891, Vol. I, p. 218; W. Fraser Rae, ‘ Political 
Clubs’’ (Nineteenth Century, May, 1878). 


SECOND CHAP. | PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 145 





With this view, a number of leaders of the party, ex-Ministers 
and ex-ambassadors, assisted by several Tory country notables, 
founded the Carlton Club, in 1831, which_was intended to com- 
bine the purpose of a social club and of a centre for rallying 
the party and for political action in general. 

The plan of the club succeeded. Members of Parliament 
belonging to both Houses, from the leaders down to the most 
obscure members, met at the Carlton, laid their heads together 
there, and gave or received the word of command. The local 
leaders, the provincial notables who came up to London and 
wished to see the great men of the party, were sure to find thein 
at the Carlton, and there they could approach them on a foot- 
ing of equality and even of intimacy. The relations to which 
this gave rise and the influences resulting therefrom linked 
the constituencies to the Carlton all the more strongly because 
the tie was invisible. The note struck at the Carlton Club 
was invariably and faithfully re-echoed in the country, because 
there too, in every locality, the local leaders and the mass of 
electors were united by the same imperceptible ties of social 
influences. A political committee formed in the club itself 
kept up constant relations with the local associations or agents, 
and stimulated the work of electoral registration. ered 
als were not long in discerning the part played by the Carlton 
Club, and about 1836 they founded a Similar institution with 
the name of the Reform Club, whi 
the headquarters of the Liberal party. It also had its politi- 
cal committee, which discharged the same duties as that of the 
Carlton. 

In both clubs the threads were held by the party Whips. 
There they had all their parliamentary following ready to hand, 
and from there too they could work the provinces. They could 
no longer do it as in the days when they bought parliamen- 
tary boroughs and sold and resold them; the market had 
ceased to exist; but 4 sort of electoral labour exchange grew 
up_in_ the clubs. he aspirants to parliamentary honours 
generally belonged to the Carlton or the Reform Club, — the 
politicians were not so very numerous, —and the Whips knew 
them all, their ambitions as well as their abilities. Provincials 
who had no candidates could recruit them in London, at the 
clubs, with the aid of the Whips. 


VOG..0——b 





























146 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp parr 





Vv 


The Whip was assisted by a general agent of the party whose 
special business was to watch the electoral situation in the 
constituencies. This chief agent had correspondents through- 
out the Kingdom. In places where there were associations 
their secretaries communicated with him. The information 
being concentrated in his hands, he in his turn was in a posi- 
tion to assist the Whip and the leaders of the party in general 
with his suggestions. At a time when the provincial Press 
possessed but little importance, and when it was credited in 
London with much less than it really possessed, local life 
was imperfectly known. Besides, public feeling on politics 
had few opportunities for displaying itself in the intervals 
between the elections. Consequently the electoral situation in 
different parts of the country appeared somewhat hazy, even 
to politicians. The general agent of the party was supposed to 
be able to see through it, and he enjoyed the same respect in 
party circles as country folk have for the local bone-setter. A 
Prime Minister, before risking a dissolution of Parliament, 
closeted himself with the agent of the party to consult him 
on the chances of a general election. When he appeared in 
the lobbies of the House, at times when a dissolution was 
in the air, people pressed round him; journalists hung upon 
his utterances as if they were those of the Delphic Oracle. 

As time went on, this somewhat empirical fashion of manag- 
ing electoral matters became inadequate; the necessity for 
more methodical action made itself felt, and, at the same 
time, it became inconvenient to attend to party business in the 
club itself, over one’s wine, so to speak. The Liberal Whip 
Brand (afterward Viscount Hampden) thereupon started about 
1861 an independent central organization called the “ Liberal 
Registration Association,’ composed of members’ elected by 
the committee and paying a subscription of a few pounds. Its 
principal business, as its name indicates, was to see after the 
register. It promoted the formation of Registration Societies, 
sent them instructions and circulars, gave them opinions on 





1“ Of gentlemen of known Liberal political opinions,’’ in the words of the 
Statutes of the Association drawn up in March, 1861 (Art. I). 


SECOND CHAP.] = PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 147 





knotty points of law, and looked up non-resident electors (out- 
voters) throughout the Kingdom and sent them to the poll in 
their respective constituencies. The residence qualification 
in England is different for voters in boroughs and for those in 
counties. While the former, in order to exercise their right of 
voting, must reside within a radius of not more than seven miles 
from the borough, persons qualified to vote in counties may 
vote at an election even if they never live in their county. They 
can reside abroad, and yet preserve their right of voting if they 
like to exercise it. Non-resident electors were always a valu- 
able contingent in electoral contests. Before 1832, when the 
suffrage was extremely restricted and the relative value of a 
vote was much greater, voters were occasionally fetched from 
abroad, from Holland and France.!. The reimbursement of the 
outvoters’ travelling expenses was one of the regular forms of 
electoral corruption; the real expense was exaggerated. The 
Legislature was obliged to intervene, and in 1858 the payment 
of travelling expenses, whether in cash or in any other shape, 
was prohibited; the law only allowed the candidate or his 
agent to supply the voter with the conveyance required to take 
him to the polling station.? The Registration Societies and the 
election agents thereupon undertook to treat with the carriage 
proprietors or the railway companies. The negotiations with 
the various railway companies were no easy matter for a local 
Association. But the difficulties did not end there; the great 
thing was to get hold of the absent voter, to persuade him to 
undertake the journey, and then supply him with the carriage 
or the railway ticket. And these outvoters were very numerous, 
at least fifteen per cent of the total number of electors.? The 
central organization which had just been formed in 1861 was 
destined to render signal service to the local organizations in 
all these matters. The Liberal Registration Association cen- 
tralized all the work relating to outvoters. Being in posses- 


1 Report on Bribery, 1835, p. 123; Report from the Commissioners on 
Municipal Corporations in England and Wales, 1834. Appendix, Part IV, 
p. 2310 (Blue Books, 1835, Vol. XXXIV). 

222 and 23 Vict. ec. 87, s. 1. 

8 The following are some figures by way of example: the division of West 
Kent had, in 1858, out of 9000 electors, 1500 outvoters dispersed throughout 
the Kingdom ; for the county of Middlesex, out of 14,500 voters on the register 
of 1866, 3000 lived out of the county. 


148 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEeconp part 





sion of the electoral registers of the whole Kingdom it made 
separate lists of all persons who were entered on them as resid- 
ing elsewhere, and, with the aid of its local correspondents, 
placed itself in communication with the outvoters in each local- 
ity and offered them railway tickets. The railway companies 
received the fares on returning the tickets which had been 
used” to the Central Association, and the money was refunded 
the Association in its turn by the candidate on whose behalf 
the outvoters had made the journey. 

Resides the management of registration and of the outvoters, 
the Association also undertook the recommendation of parlia- 
mentary candidates. Men who wished to stand for Parliament 
applied to the Association. The Whip took note of their polit- 
ical opinions, if they had any, and especially of the pecuniary 
sacrifices which they were disposed to make for the electoral 
struggle. He entered them in the candidates’ book and classed 
them. <A good Whip, after a talk with a candidate, could see 
at once whether he would do for any constituency, and fixed on 
the constituency which would probably suit him. Then, when 
there was an application for a candidate, the Association sent 
down a name to its local agent. The agent, who was frequently 
the secretary of the Registration Society, called a meeting of the 
party leaders, the most influential men, and submitted the can- 
didate’s name to them. Very often a deputation came up to 
London, and an interview was arranged between it and the 
candidate in the office of the Association. If they did not come 
to terms, the Association offered another candidate; it always 
had a supply of all shades of opinion and suited to all tastes. 
The Association did not put pressure on the constituencies in 
the choice of candidates, it only acted the part of honest broker. 
The Association did not spend any money on the elections, it 
was the candidate who had to defray all the expense. If he 
was a poor man and if his presence in Parliament was desirable ~ 
in the interest of the party, the Whips supplied him with money ; 
they had funds subscribed by the wealthy men of the party 
which they used at their discretion. That a portion of these 














1 A first-class ticket was always given, even to workmen; the voter consid- 
ered it beneath his dignity to travel second or third on this occasion. 

2 As a rule, about fifty per cent of the outvoters consented to undertake 
the journey. 


SECOND CHAP. ] PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 149 





funds was employed in bribing voters when the candidate was 
not rich enough to do it himself, is not improbable. The inter- 
vention from London haunted people’s minds in the provinces, 
even when it never took place; and, in accordance with the old 
tradition, it was attributed to the Carlton Club or to the Re- 
form Club. In reality, the clubs had no share in it, they had 
lost their influence, especially the Reform Club; all the electoral 
operations of the party were henceforth managed from the office 
of the Central Association. The Conservative party founded 
one on the same basis as the Liberal organization which I have 
just described. After having been, at its start, under the con- 
trol of a well-known firm of solicitors, it was soon placed in the 
hands of special agents. Devoting itself particularly to the 
cultivation of social relations, which were the electoral main- 
spring of the Conservative party, the central Tory office kept 
in close touch with the Carlton Club; if they had not the same 
body, they were animated by the same spirit. 

The local correspondents of the central associations were 
generally solicitors. They were at the same time the moving 
spirits of the Registration Society, if there was one in the local- 
ity. They were not paid for these services, but it was to their 
interest to render them; either because their activity on behalf 
of the party gave them a connection and increased their prac- 
tice, or because this activity marked them out beforehand for 
the appointment of election agent, who conducted the election 
campaign for a candidate, and this was an extremely lucrative 
employment. Besides the very ample remuneration which he 
received directly, the agent made a good deal of money out of 
the election expenses, which in the old days reached an enor- 
mous total and all passed through his hands." 


Vi 


The movement set on foot after the Reform Bill for the for- 
mation of local party associations continued with a strength 
which varied according to the times and the localities. The 


1 The accounts which the agent sent in after the election to the candidate 
for whom he had been working, were almost always of a fanciful and occa- 
sionally of a humorous description. Thus one agent entered among the vari- 
ous election expenses: ‘‘ mental anxiety, £500.” 


150 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





Liberals set the example. The Conservatives followed when 
they had shaken off the torpor in which they had been plunged 
by Reform. Their leading statesman, Sir Robert Peel, more 
than once called the attention of his party to the importance 
of registration. ‘The battle of the Constitution,” he said, 
“will be fought in the registration courts.” Consequently, he 
exclaimed on another occasion, the watchword of the day 
should be: “Register, register, register!”1! Following this 
advice, the Conservatives also set to work to form societies for 
attending to the registration and giving cohesion to the party. 
The principal scene of their activity was Lancashire, where, 
thanks to the assiduity with which their organizations devoted 
themselves to the register, the Conservatives succeeded in 
making up their lost ground in the county constituencies.’ 
One feature which must be noticed and borne in mind in con- 
nection with these Lancashire organizations, is that they were 
divided into two categories, one for gentlemen and the other 
for the lower orders who had their own associations, under the 
name of ‘Conservative Operatives’ Societies.” The Liberal 
organizations were generally called “ Liberal Registration Soci- 
eties ” or sometimes “ Liberal Associations.” The Conservative 
organizations were partial to the title of “Loyal and Constitu- 
tional Associations.” The agitation against the duties on 
corn gave a great impulse to the formation of Registration Soci- 
eties. When the campaign of persuasion undertaken by Cob- 
den and his friends was in an advanced stage, the League set 
about transforming the accumulated moral force into political 
force by preparing the mobilization of the electoral army for 
the next general election. But, as the exercise of the suf- 
frage depended on the correctness of the electoral register, and 
the preparation of this register was left more or less to private 
initiative, the lists were in a state of great confusion in many 
places.‘ The League decided to intervene for the purpose of 


1 Speech at the Tamworth election dinner, 7 Aug. 1837, 28 July 1841, etc. 

2 The Tory Reform Act, by a member of the Council of the National Union 
of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, Lond. 1868. 

8 The first traces of a Conservative organization in the metropolis which 
I have discovered relate to the Loyal and Constitutional Association of the 
borough of Marylebone, about the year 1834 (Report on Bribery, 1835, p. 423). 

4See in connection with this Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law 
League, Il, 221. 


SECOND CHAP. | PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 151 





placing all its adherents on the register. A registration de- 
partment was instituted in the offices of the League at Man- 
chester; it started committees and registration societies in the 
constituencies, which, assisted by legal advice and other in- 
structions from headquarters, devoted their efforts to getting 
the followers of the League on the register. Several of the 
Registration Societies founded on this occasion outlived the 
free-trade agitation and became instruments of the Liberal 
party. 

After 1846, the contests in the registration courts became 
less keen. Owing to the indifference of the voters and the 
insufficiency of funds, a good many associations fell into a lan- 
guishing state. Sometimes also a sort of truce grew up between 
parties, and then they disbanded their forces; they dissolved 
the Registration Societies, and left the register to its fate.! Or, 
again, when’ one side had an overwhelming majority in a con- 
stituency, the other side gave up the struggle, and Registration 
Societies were considered of no use.? But in constituencies 
where parties were evenly balanced, or where the opponent’s 
prospects were improving, the Associations still confronted each 
other. The member and his agent did not always like to be 
encumbered with an Association; in that case they did not 
encourage, or discouraged, its formation; the agent took sole 
charge of the register, and collected subscriptions to meet the 
expenses of registration proceedings.’ Lastly, in certain dis- 
tricts, especially in the counties, a territorial magnate would 
order one of his dependents to look after the register, and 
would defray all the expenses himself.‘ 


wat 


In the electoral proceedings which followed the settle- 
ment of the register, viz. in the selection of candidates, and 
in electioneering operations, the part played by the Associ- 


1 Select Committee on Registration of Voters in Counties (Blue Books of 
1870, Vol. VI, p. 99, § 2156). 

2 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords (Blue Books of 
1860, Vol. XII, p. 65). 

3 Select Committee on Registration of County Voters (Blue Books of 1864, 
Vol. X, p. 87). 

4 Committee on the Corrupt Prantibes Act (Blue Books of 1860, Vol. X, p. 250). 


152 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





ations varied in importance. In the choice of candidates their 
share was slight. It was more the play of living social forces, 
still highly important, that marked men out and thrust them 
upon the public. The Associations or their committees ex- 
eee aes submitted by the central organization in 
London, or by a few private individuals, or even by the candi- 
dates themselves who came forward, and laid them before the 
electors. Strictly speaking, the committee only represented 
itself; its members had no mandate conferred on them by for- 
mal vote but held it by the tacit acquiescence of the electorate. 
The whole Association also only represented the subscribers 
who had thought fit to combine together. The Associations 
and the committees had no mandate and did not lay claim to 
one. They merely recommended the candidates, and their 
recommendation carried the same weight as the personal influ- 
ence of their members and no more. This influence was 
derived from their social rank, their wealth, their inteili- 
gence, or their adroitness. Good or bad, they were the natural 
leaders of the society of the time. Their small number of 
course made them an oligarchy, and encouraged the formation 
of coteries and of “hole-and-corner management.” But in 
spite of this, the selections of candidates were not at all bad, 
while not unfrequently open to criticism. These leaders were 
not devoid of a sense of responsibility. 

A candidate rejected by the Association did not consider him- 
self, and was not considered, bound by this decision; the com- 
mittee did not take the place of the electorate. A candidate 
who did not accept the decision of the committee came before 
the electors supported by a committee of his own. To ensure 
union in face of the enemy, the whole party was sometimes 
consulted beforehand upon the rival candidates. The procedure 
employed to take the sense of the electors varied: a circular 
was forwarded to the electors asking them to state in reply 
by post which of the candidates they preferred ;' or the agents 
of the rival candidates called on each voter and took down 
the replies, then they compared their lists and the less 
favoured candidates withdrew; sometimes again a prelimi- 
nary vote was arranged, a non-official, full-dress rehearsal of 














1Report from the Select Committee on the Corrupt Practices Prevention 
Act (Blue Books of 1860, Vol. X, p. 159). 


SECOND CHAP. ] PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 153 





the polling." Another mode of preventing the multiplication 
of candidatures, by which the opposite party could benefit, 
was arbitration. The arbitrators weighed the chances of the 
rivals, and decided which should retire. The party Whip 
also took up cases of this kind; by dint of tact and skilful 
argument he would induce one of the competitors to with- 
draw. 


Vill 


The operations during election time for winning the seat 
were conducted in accordance with the old traditions and cen- 
tred chiefly in the canvass. The canvass consisted of the 
visits which the candidate and his friends who possessed in- 
fluence in the locality paid to each voter in the district just 
before the poll, to get him to promise his vote. In the rural 
districts, where territorial influences were firmly established and 
made the elections a foregone conclusion, a canvass was not 
very necessary. But in urban constituencies these visits were 
indispensable. They were a duty from which the grand sei- 
gneur himself could not escape. At atime when political convic- 
tions counted for little or nothing with the great mass of voters, 
the art of canvassing, of talking a voter over, was of paramount 
importance in electioneering contests. Like every art, canvass- 
ing had its great masters. But they were not formed in a 
school, they were born, like poets. Among the fine old types of 
canvassers produced by the eighteenth century, the Marquis of 
Wharton is the most famous. His biographer relates how he 
canvassed on behalf of one of his candidates in the borough of 
Wicomb: “Wharton was going up and down the town with 
his friends to secure votes on their side. Entering a shoe- 
maker’s shop he asked ‘where Dick was?’ The good woman 
said her husband was gone two or three miles off with some 
shoes, but his lordship need not fear for him, —she would 
keep him tight. ‘I know that,’ says my lord, ‘but I want to 
see Dick and drink a glass with him.’ The wife was very sorry 
Dick was out of the way. ‘Well,’ says his lordship, ‘ how does 
all thy children? Molly is a brave girl, I warrant, by this 
time.’ ‘Yes, I thank ye, my lord,’ says the woman, and his 














1 Report on Parliamentary and Municipal Elections (Blue Books of 1868-9, 
Vol. VIII, p. 524). 


154 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





lordship continued, ‘is not Jemmy breeched yet ?’” A friend 
of the rival candidate, who had slipped into Wharton’s 
train, could stand it no longer; he rushed off to his friends 
and told them that the contest was hopeless, that nothing could 
make way against a great peer who knew the age of Molly and 
Jemmy so well.! 

The poet Cowper has left a curious description of a canvass- 
ing visit which Grenville had paid him: “We were sitting 
yesterday after dinner, the two ladies and myself very com- 
posedly ... when, to our unspeakable surprise, a mob appeared 
before the window, a smart rap was heard at the door, and the 
maid announced Mr. Grenville. In a minute the yard, the 
kitchen, and the parlour were filled. Mr. Grenville advancing 
towards me shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality 
that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many 
more as could find chairs were seated, he began to open the 
intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote, for which he 
readily gave me credit. I assured him I had no influence, 
which he was not equally inclined to believe, and the less no 
doubt, because Mr. Ashburner, the draper, addressing himself 
to me at this moment informed me that I had a great deal. 
Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure 
without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion 
by saying that, if I had any, I was utterly at a loss to imagine 
where it could be or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the con- 
ference. Mr. Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed 
the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the 
kitchen, and seemed upon the whole, a most loving, kissing, 
kindhearted gentleman.” ” 

Ladies also occasionally joined in the canvass and they were 
just as expansive when it was a question of securing a vote. 
There is the well-known story of the beautiful Duchess of 
Devonshire who, when canvassing for Fox, allowed a butcher 
to give her a kiss in return for a promise to vote for the great 
Whig orator. 


1 Memoirs of the Life of the Most Noble Thomas, late Marquess of Wharton, 
Lond. 1715, p. 34. 

2 Quoted in the article of the Quarterly Review of 1857, Vol. CII, ‘‘ Election- 
eering,’’ apparently written by Thackeray (see Jos. Grego, A History of Par- 
liamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days, Lond. 1887). 


SECOND CHAP. | PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 155 





The Whartons, the Duchess of Devonshire, who introduced 
artistic touches of one kind or another into their canvassing, 
were rare; and as time went on, especially after the extension 
of the franchise, canvassing lost, so to speak, its poetry, its 
picturesqueness; but it none the less remained the great elec- 
tioneering weapon. People still continued, and probably rightly 
so, to rely more on direct personal influence than on principles 
and programmes. Only, owing to the increase in the number 
of voters, it was necessary to bring this action to bear with 
more method, to have an organization. The Registration Socie- 
ties suppled the framework of it. Having made their way 
into the political life of the nation through the gap left by the 
defects in the registration laws, the Societies and Associations 
acquired a fresh hold on the electorate by means of the can- 
vassing system. 

The canvassing machinery was set in motion whenever the 
period of electioneering commenced. The most important 
members of the Associations formed themselves into a central 
committee, into which they also admitted persons who did not 
belong to the Association but whose connections might make 
them of use. Then they established committees in the various 
districts composed of persons who were full of energy and 
resource in electoral matters. The district committees con- 
ducted the canvass, each member separately or in groups. The 
canvassers of the rival candidates made their expeditions at 
the same time, one party in one street, the other in the next; 
it was considered fair to agree as to the opening day of the elec- 
toral shooting season, and the two armies of canvassers started 
simultaneously. The canvassers visited all the voters indis- 
criminately, even those who notoriously belonged to the opposite 
side. They noted down all the replies of the voters, and were 
in a position to forecast the probable result of the polling before 
the election. After the canvass, the next great business of the 
committees was to get the voters to the poll. Besides these 
official, acknowledged duties, the committees were more or less 
engaged in the work of electoral corruption. The district com- 
mittees generally sat in the public-houses. It was here that 
people came to receive the password, and here, too, they were 
supplied with food and drink gratuitously, that is to say, at 
the candidate’s expense, during the whole canvass. 


156 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





IX 


In all this the party associations only continued the old 
practices; they had simply followed up the electioneering sys- 
tem created in the old days and developed by the manners and 
customs of the nation. Where the motive power really ema- 
nated from the Associations, as was the case with the registra- 
tion operations, it was not long before they incurred a grave 
responsibility. Their ir activity in this important department of 
electoral life was marked by exclusive party spirit to such an 
extent as to warp the electoral machinery far_more than keep 
it_in_ proper working order. The defects in the system _of 
registration established_by the law of 1832 set a premium on 
party manceuvres, ‘True, the Legislature had tried to remedy 
them; it had abolished the registration fee of one shilling, 
it had empowered the Revising Barristers to allow costs for 
unfounded objections. But these slight attempts at reform 
could not overcome the indifference of the electors who did 
not care whether they were on the register or not, nor the 
ignorance and carelessness of the tradesmen appointed over- 
seers for the year, nor the dishonesty of the parties repre- 
sented by the organizations. The latter set to work to strike 
properly qualified persons off the register, or to prevent their 
opponents from being entered on it, and to get their own fol- 
lowers who had no right to vote admitted. Every year the 
Registration Societies started thousands of objections to the 
claims lodged by the electors. They calculated, and rightly, 
that many of those who were opposed would not or could not 
appear in the registration court to uphold their right to vote, 
or even that they would receive no notice of opposition owing 
to removal, etc; and the legal consequence of the non-disallow- 
ance of an objection was that the name was struck off the list. 
By these manceuvres they could easily manage to transfer the 
majority from one side to the other. The Associations had 
therefore made _a regular business, “a trade,” ! of lodging objec- 
tions. At the same time they started unfounded claims, which 
had to be allowed if no one objected to them; the overseers 





























1 Select Committee on Registration of Voters in Boroughs (Blue Books of 
1868-9, Vol. VII, p. 134). 


SECOND CHAP. | PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 157 





had not the means or the wish to check them, and the Revising 
Barristers had no right to do so if an appeal was not made to 
them. “Improper claims originate chiefly with the Registra- 
tion Societies. Voters very seldom make claims of their own 
head; they are generally got to do so by the agent of the Regis- 
tration Society.” ? 

It is true that the societies of the rival parties, in superyis- 
ing and controlling each other, helped, as they maintained, to 
purity the register. But, out of the mass of objections and 
claims with which the parties assailed each other, a good many 
unfounded ones slipped through and well-founded ones were 
unsuccessful. In any event, the methods by which the recti- 
fication of the register was effected destroyed all the benefit 
of the result. An elector whose right was unjustly attacked 
by one party association reasserted it by the help of another, 
which had an eye on his vote, and always at the cost of wasted 
time and of trouble to the persons engaged in the proceedings. 
The special parliamentary committee, appointed in 1868 to 
inquire into the registration of electors in boroughs, took a 
quantity of evidence on Registration Societies and came to the 
conclusion that “the action of such associations is necessarily 
prejudicial to the independence of a constituency, and not only 
affords the means, but supphes a grave temptation to illegiti- 
mate practices and corrupt inducements, whilst at the same 
time the imperfect operation of the responsible registration 
authority justifies their existence and forms an excuse for their 
operations.” ” 

It is remarkable that this opinion was shared by repre- 
sentatives of the organizations themselves. There were en- 
lightened men among them who did not hesitate to denounce 
the intervention of associations in political life. And they did 
so under circumstances which gave their statements a peculiar 
importance, especially in the great parliamentary enquiries into 
electoral matters during the years 1860-1870. The secretary of 
the Liberal Association of the City of London, when giving 
evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords, said 








1 Select Committee on Registration of Voters in Counties (Blue Books of 
1870, Vol. VI, p. 122, § 2687). 

2 Report from the Select Committee on Registration of Voters in Boroughs 
(Blue Books of 1868-9, Vol. VII, p. 6). 


158 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp parr 





that the abandonment of registration to associations “was a 
very great political evil. Of course I ought not to speak 
against that which employs myself; but I think it.a most 
unconstitutional thing. ... If the suffrage were extended, an 
election would depend to a much greater extent than it does 
at present (and it does too much now) upon political organiza- 
tions. It would increase the power of those political Associa- 
tions . . . and would pro tanto disturb the natural expression 
of public opinion.” ? 

Before the Select Committees on registration, many repre- 
sentatives of the organizations expressed the opinion that an 
official system of registration should be instituted, in order to cut 
the ground from under the feet of the “ Societies.” ? The founder 
of the central Association of the Liberal party, Mr. Brand 
(raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Hampden for his 
signal services as Speaker of the House of Commons), at a 
committee of enquiry of which he was a member, also emphati- 
cally condemned the associations which he had himself helped 
to develop to meet the exigencies of the party. He considered 
that the party associations had an unhealthy effect.’ 


1 Blue Books of 1860, Vol. XII, pp. 76, 226. 

2 Evidence of Mr. Temple before the Committee of 1869 (Blue Books of 
1868-9, Vol. VII, p. 184), of Mr. T. N. Roberts before the Committee of 1870 
(Blue Books of 1870, Vol. VI, § 762). 

3 The Blue Book on the parliamentary enquiry of 1870 contains a curious 
dialogue between Mr. Brand and a witness, a clerk of the peace. The clerks 
of the peace had to work at the electoral register in the counties, but, as the 
parties had taken possession of the registration, the clerks trusted to the Asso- 
ciations. The clerk who was giving his evidence before the parliamentary 
committee considered the Associations useful. 

Mr. Brand. The character of the legislature depends on the registration, 
the component parts of the House of Commons depend for their character on 
registration, do they not, and the registration depends for its success in the 
counties on the activity of certain wealthy partisans on each side—is it a 
desirable state of things? You gave it as your opinion that registration asso- 
ciations had a healthy effect on the constituencies. 

Witness. Yes. 

Mr. Brand. I have been trying to prove to you that they have not; do 
you still consider that registration associations have had a healthy effect on 
constituencies ? 

Witness. Ido consider that Registration Societies have a healthy effect on 
the purity of the register . . . I think the political parties on each side are 
the best check. . 

Mr. Brand. You are thoroughly enamoured with political associations. 
(Committee on Registration 1870, Blue Books of 1870, Vol. VI, p. 119, 120.) 


SECOND CHAP. ] PARTY ORGANIZATIONS 159 





x 


Yet the activity of the party associations, which gave rise to 
these criticisms, was only a beginning of interposition between 
the electorate and the Constitution. The extension of the sphere 
of action and of the influence of party organizations was often 
viewed with apprehension. It was one of the aspects under 
which people considered the probable consequences of the many 
electoral reforms which had stirred public opinion from and 
after the second half of the century: of the extension of the 
franchise, of the representation of minorities, of the introduction 

‘of the ballot. The extension of the suffrage was opposed be- 
cause “with a widely enlarged suffrage the candidate would find 
himself less and less able to come face to face with his constitu- 
ency, and would be compelled in consequence” .. . “to rely 
more and more on the aid of the election agent, and, as in 
America, of that of committees and canvassers whose mouth- 
piece and delegate he would have to make himself.”? Secret 
voting, in the opinion of some of its opponents, was bound to 
entail the same untoward consequences: with open voting the 
electors could follow the fluctuations of the poll and during its 
progress make up their minds how to vote; with the absolute 
secrecy of the ballot, they thought, it would be necessary to 
trust to the previous arrangements of organizations to make 
sure of the success of the party candidate. When the idea of 
the representation of minorities was put forward by Hare and 
supported by J. 8. Mill, protests were raised against this innova- 
tion because it was likely to lead to the formation of a powerful 
party organization with ramifications throughout the country.’ 
This argument was reverted to when the discussion of propor- 
tional representation was resumed, either in Parliament,’ or in 
the Press.6 The adherents of Hare’s plan, on the other hand, 

















1 Hansard’s Parliam. Debates, Vol. CLXXXVII, p. 811. Cf. the observa- 
' tions to the same effect in the Quarterly Review, Jan. 1869, ‘‘ Politics as a 
Profession,’’ p. 285. 

2 Cf. E. Maitland, ‘“‘ Misrepresentation of Majorities,’’ Fortnightly Review, 
Vol. VIII, 1870. 

3G. O. Trevelyan, ‘‘ A Few Remarks on Mr. Hare’s Scheme of Representa- 
tion,’ Macmillan’s Magazine, April, 1862. 

4 Hansard, Vol. CLXXXIX, p. 458 and elsewhere. 

5 Leslie Stephen, ‘‘ The Value of Political Machinery,’’ Fortnightly Review, 
Dec. 1875, p. 844. 





160 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp Part 





were convinced that when once this electoral reform was real- 
ized, party organizations would lose their power. ‘They may 
return, but they will come as suppliants to beseech, instead of 
as masters to command.” ? 

The increased activity of the party organizations which had 
been apprehended, came to pass. The movement was carried 
out under the auspices of the Radical democracy of Birming- 
ham in consequence of the campaign against the represen- 
, tation of minorities undertaken in that city. 


1L. Courtney, ‘‘ Political Machinery and Political Life,’’ Fortnightly 
Review, July, 1876. 


THIRD CHAPTER 
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 


Li 


Tue Birmingham Radicals who regarded the minority clause 
of the Reform Bill of 1867 as antidemocratic, were very anx- 
ious to nullify its effect. Their idea was, that this might 
perhaps be accomplished by means of an electoral scheme 
adopted beforehand, but that a formidable organization would 
be necessary for the purpose. The old organization of the 
Libera: party seemed to them too lax, too feeble. The Regis- 
tration Sovieties, the Reform or Liberal Associations which 
had sprung up since 1832, were groups of subscribers, of ama- 
teurs, and were in the hands of traditional leaders incapable 
of getting at the masses who had just been brought on the 
political stage by the extension of the franchise. Birming- 
ham received 30,000 new electors. The opponents of the 
minority clause believed that to ensure the victory, the 
party organization ought to reach all these voters, to make 
them feel that they were about to fight pro aris et focis, that 
the Liberal party was their own party, the party of each 
ene of them. To meet these views, one of the Radical lead- 
ers, Mr. W. Harris, architect, man of letters, and secretary of 
the Birmingham Liberal Association, proposed a plan of organ—_ 
ization according to which all the Liberals of the locality were 
to meet in every ward, and elect representatives to manage the 
affairs of the party. Being nominated directly by the people 
and keeping in constant communication with the inhabitants of 
the wards, the delegates would be able to decide authoritatively 
on the general direction to be given to the party, as well as on 
all the important questions of the day, and especially on the 
choice of candidates for the elections. For this latter purpose 
in particular “a more popular body must be provided —a body 
which should not only: be a reflex of popular opinion, but 

VoL. I—M 161 














162 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp parr 





should be so manifestly a reflex of that opinion that none 
could doubt it.” The representatives appointed with this 
object, “elected openly and freely by the burgesses, without 
dictation or suggestion from the central body or anybody else,” 
will select the candidates. ‘Gentlemen aspiring to the honour- 
able position of representing Birmingham must abide by the 
vote of the selecting body, and the Liberal electors must do 
so.”’ 1 

This plan, which was indefatigably urged in every ward 
and at one meeting after another, was adopted. The Liberal 
committee formed in consequence selected candidates for all 
three seats in view of the impending general election (in 
1868). But as each elector could only vote for two candidates, 
owing to the minority clause, the committee hit upon the fol- 
lowing device: by a preliminary canvass the central committee 
ascertained the exact number of Liberal electors in each ward 
and the minimum of votes necessary to obtain the majority 
at the poll, then distributed the three candidates by twos 
among the electors of the ward, in such fashion that each can- 
didate would only receive the number of votes strictly neces- 
sary to obtain the majority at the poll, and the votes over and 
above this would be given to one of the two other candidates 
so that each of them should eventually have a majority. One 
ward voted for A and B, another for A and C, a third for B 
and C, a fourth for A and B, ete. The voter, who had left the 
selection of the three candidates to the general committee, was 
also to renounce the privilege of selecting from among them 
the two which he preferred. “Vote as you are told” was the 
password. This was the price which had to be paid for the 
victory over the foes of democracy. Each voter received a 
ticket with the two names which he had to declare at the 
_ poll. Some Conservatives were ill-advised enough to counter- 
feit and circulate tickets with the same names of Liberal 
candidates, but differently distributed among the wards. If 
any number of electors had voted in accordance with 
these forged tickets the Liberal committee’s game would 
have been completely spoilt. The fraud was discovered in 
time, and the tendency to vote in implicit obedience to orders 
only grew all the more marked in the Liberal camp. The 


1 Birmingham Daily Post, 21 December, 1867. 


THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 163 





enthusiasm, however, was not unanimous; a workingman’s 
party, small in numbers and with no influence, distrusted the 
champions of the vote-as-you-are-told democracy. Some Radi- 
eals of the old school, survivors of the “glorious days” of 1831- 
1832, who had fought for the extension of the suffrage, were 
grieved to see that their fellow-citizens were about to exercise 
it not as free men but as puppets.’ But the immense majority 
of the electors “ voted as they were told,” and the three Lib- 
eral candidates were elected in spite of the restricted voting 
clause passed for the benefit of minorities. 


tT 


The “enemies of democracy ” and the “ philosophers ” who 
introduced the limited voting system, refused to profit by the 
lesson which Birmingham had given them, and they took the 
first opportunity of extending the application of the principle 
of minority representation. The law of 1870 on primary edu- 
cation, which placed the management of schools supported 
by the ratepayers in the hands of elected Boards, provided 
that the elections should be held on the cumulative voting 
system.” The Birmingham Radicals once more started a cam- 
paign to nullify the cumulative vote as they had done with the 
limited vote. But the elaborate distribution of votes among 
the candidates, which was too complicated on this occasion, 
did not succeed; and instead of capturing the whole Board, as 
they intended, the Radicals were left in a minority. 

The prestige of the Liberal Association suffered from this; 
its organization broke up, but only to reunite soon afterwards 
with fresh strength and enter upon a career of striking inter- 


1 A friend and companion of Atwood in the Political Union of 1831, wrote: 
‘“You must vote as you are told! We who have flattered and petted you 
when you had no vote — stating over and over again our entire confidence in 
your ability rightly to-use it—now cannot trust you! I say it is an insult, 
and the securing of any end, no matter how desirable, will not justify it. I, 
even, the bosom friend of Atwood, have had this degrading proposition put to 
me... .” (Birmingham Daily Gazette, 27 Oct. 1868.) 

2 The system of cumulative voting consists in allowing the elector who has 
to vote for several candidates, for five or ten for instance, to give five or ten 
votes to a single candidate, so that a small group of electors concentrating 
their votes on a single person can ensure his election and make their voice 
heard in the teeth of the dominant majority. 


164 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





est and pregnant with consequences for the political life of 
the whole country. This was in 1873. About that time two 
men appeared on the scene at Birmingham. Very dissimi- 
lar in personal weight, in ambition, and in abilities, and des- 
tined to very different futures, they helped more than any one 
else to alter the character of extra-parliamentary political life. 
One was Mr. Schnadhorst, the new secretary of the Liberal 
Association, and the other Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who be- 
came the inspirer of the organization. Elected mayor of Bir- 
mingham in 1873, Mr. Chamberlain was the most brilliant 
representative of a group of remarkable men whom chance 
brought together there. They were all very advanced Radi- 
cals. Their Radicalism had nothing speculative about it. For 
the most part active and intelligent men of business, they were 
not much encumbered with reading. They had a few men 
of literary education among them, but little inclined to philo- 
sophie doubt. The picture of the Athenian democracy drawn 
by G. Grote had imbued them with a Radical enthusiasm of an 
uncompromising stamp; they did not understand the scruples 
of a John Stuart Mill, who tried to discover counter-checks 
for democracy; for, they believed, if democratic government 
is a good thing, it is so, without restriction, without reserve. 
A very important position in this group was held by some 
Unitarian ministers, animated with a generous and over- 
flowing enthusiasm which lifted every question into the 
higher regions of morality and civilization. The humanitarian 
zeal and public spirit of one section as well as the desire of 
others to make their mark in public life after having suc- 
ceeded in business, found a sphere of activity in the munici- 
pality of Birmingham. A quarter of a century ago the 
capital of the Midlands was anything but a well-ordered 
city. It still bore the stamp of the great manufacturing 
centres which had developed with extraordinary rapidity in 
the north of England and whieh exhausted their energies in 
huge buildings with tall chimneys vomiting forth clouds of 
smoke from dawn to sunset; absorbed in the task of produc- 
tion, the inhabitants were not only little open to intellectual 
and artistic ideas, but were even indifferent to the material 
well-being of their city. In spite of the growing prosperity 
of Birmingham, everything in the town was in an unsatisfac- 


THIRD CHAP.| ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 165 





tory state, from the street pavements to the sanitary condition 
of the dwellings. The men who gathered round Mr. Joseph 
Chamberlain conceived the ambition, under the special inspira- 
tion of the Unitarian ministers above-mentioned,’ of taking in 
hand the improvement of the town; and to accomplish this 
object they decided to make themselves masters of the Town 
Council. After a vigorous electoral campaign they carried the 
day. : 

Once installed in the Town Hall, Mr. Chamberlain and his 
friends undertook a whole series of public works for the sani- 
tation and embellishment of Birmingham. Their activity was 
of the Haussmann order. Like the famous prefect of Napo- 
leon III, the new municipality opened new streets; demolished 
the slums in the heart of the town; erected magnificent build- 
ings; organized a system of drainage and sanitary inspection 
and paved the streets; founded public libraries, baths, hos- 
pitals; opened out squares; made the town owner of the gas 
and water supply. The cost of the transformation was consid- 
erable, but the results were still more so.” 


iBall 


In the execution of this work Mr. Chamberlain and his 
friends were supported in the Council by a compact and de- 
voted majority. This was provided by the organization of the 
Liberal party, which was brought to a rare degree of perfection 
by the efforts of Mr. Schnadhorst, a born organizer, a master 
in the art of “wire-pulling,” to use the political language of 
the day. Every inhabitant of the town, whether a voter or 
not, could join the Association. Payment of a subscription 
was not absolutely required. It was fixed at a minimum of a 
shilling a year, but might be dispensed with by “signifying 
adhesion to the objects and to the organization of the Associa- 
tion.” All the members of thg Association in each ward ap- 
pointed a committee of as many persons as they liked in public 
meeting. These elected members could add to their number 


1Cf. Henry W. Crosskey, His Life and Work, by R. A. Armstrong, Birm. 
1895, for the position of the Rev. George Dawson and the Rev. Henry Crosskey 
among the municipal reformers of Birmingham. 

2On this last point cf. Fred. Dolman, Municipalities at Work, Lond. 1895, 
Chap. I. 


166 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sreconp parr 





to an unlimited extent. Above the ward committees was an 
executive comnittee for the whole fSwn, composed of the chair- 
men and secretaries of the ward committees as ex officio mem- 
bers, plus three delegates for each ward chosen ad hoc in public 
meeting; that 1s to say, each ward was represented on the exec- 
utive cominittee by five delegates, which made eighty members 
for the sixteen wards of the city of Birmingham. These eighty 
had the right of adding thirty persons to their number. Side 
by side with this executive authority there was a deliberative 
assembly, the general committee, which was composed of all 
the members 0 e executive committee (80+ 30) and of 
thirty members for each ward, elected ad hoc in public meeting 
(30 x 16 = 480). Finally, to crown the pyramid, the general 
committee appointed a committee of four persons, to which the 
executive committee added seven of its members, forming the 
managing sub-committee of eleven persons. This body of 594 
persons became popular under the name of the “Six Hundred.” 
They were supposed to be the_emboadiment of-the democracy of 
Birmingham. ‘The management of the Liberal party was said 
to be entrusted to them because there was confidence in the 
people. In reality the confidence was not so boundless as they 
tried to make out. The elaborate constitution of the Associ- 
ation even contained some precautions against the “people.” 
The constituted authorities of the Association did not emanate 
directly from the people. The “Six Hundred” only appointed 
four members out of eleven of the managing committee, and 
two-thirds of this latter were nominated by the executive com- 
mittee, which was itself in part a co-optative body. In fact, 
thirty of its members were chosen by the eighty elected mem- 
bers, and of these latter two-fifths owed their appointment to 
the ward committees in which the co-opted members were un- 
limited in number. No doubt, if the ward meetings which 
were at the base of the organization elected delegates of in- 
tractable independence, all attempts at manipulating them 
from above would have failed. The adroitness of the leading 
organizers consisted precisely in obtaining control of the ward 
meetings and in making them elect delegates who could be 
relied on. In addition to all kinds of influences employed to 
bring about this result the Association also introduced practices 
such as the use of travelling companies, who went from one 




















THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 167 








ward to another to attend the public meetings in which the 
delegates were elected, and who ensured the success of certain 
candidates by the aid of their votes. This manceuvre was all 
the more easy of execution because the electiqns of delegates 
in the various wards did not take place simultaneously but 
were spread over a period of four, five or even six weeks.’ The 
final upshot was that the “Six Hundred ” consisted of men de- 
voted to Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, and who worked for 
them at the elections. 


IV 


Having obtained control of the Association, Mr. Chamberlain 
andhis friends did not, however, convert it into a mere instru- 
ment of f personal domination; they imparted to it_a real and 
fairly vigorous hfe. “Following their lead and especially at the 
entreaties of Mr. Chamberlain, the best men of the Liberal party 
joined the Association, consented to serve as delegates to the 
«Six Hundred.” They maintained uninterrupted relations with 
the masses by means of public assemblies, informal meetings, and 
personal communications on questions of general interest, and. 
thus kept up a current of public spirit. The schemes and meas- 
ures which were coming before the Town Council were often 
explained at meetings of the Association with the best results for 
the political education of the citizens. Mr. Chamberlain set the 
example. At the meetings of the “ Six Hundred” and at other 
gatherings he displayed the style of oratory which has since, in a 
larger sphere of action, placed him in the front rank of debaters, a 
style marked by clearness, incisiveness, and an inexorable logic 
which goes straight to the point and opens out wide vistas in 
the driest and most complicated subjects, as the backwoods- 
man’s axe hews a path through the tangle of a virgin forest. 
The speeches and personal communications on municipal affairs 
were supplemented by articles and pamphlets which were 
widely distributed among the public. The members of the 
Association were equally active in promoting several other 
matters of general interest which were outside the province 
of the Town Council. 

The knot of men who were working together under Mr. Cham- 



































1 In 1885 the Liberal organization thought itself strong enough to abandon 
this mode of election. 


168 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





berlain not only made all these personal sacrifices, but were just 
as ready to make pecuniary sacrifices as well. In every public 
subscription they invariably headed the list and with consider- 
able sums. All schemes for the public good were sure to meet 
with their sympathy and interest. In this way they supplied 
striking proof that the social leadership which had been the 
greatness of the England of former days could be exercised for 
the general welfare by others as well as Jandlords, and in a 
spirit differing widely from the paternal condescension of an 
aristocracy. It is true that of all the large manufacturing 
towns Birmingham was the most favourably situated for the 
establishment of relations of this kind between the upper 
middle class and the masses. Thanks to the special character 
of_its industrial life Birmingham did not exhibit the usyal-con- 
trast and antagonism between enormously wealthy employers of 
labour and a wretchedly poor manuTaciitine Ponies 
not inhabited by the “1 two nations” of Disraeli’s “Sybil” This 
fact, which was peculiar to this manufacturing centre, attracted 
the attention of observers at an early period. Léon Faucher, 
who had visited the district during the agitation against the 
Corn Laws, remarked that Birmingham was a “ manufacturing 
democracy in a great city, this being the case even in the work- 
shops where steam is the motive power. ... While in Great 
Britain generally the tendency of capital is towards concentra- 
tion, in Birmingham it is more and more in the direction of sub- 
division. The manufacturing industry of this town, like the cul- 
tivation of the soil in France, is parcelled out into small divisions. 
There are few large fortunes and hardly any big establishments. 

This industrial organization is due to the actual nature 
of the work. ... At Birmingham labour is pnrely manual. 
Machines are used as an accessory to manufacture, but every- 
thing depends on the skill and the intelligence of the work- 
man.”! If this state of things has more or less changed during 
the quarter of a century which followed the repeal of the Corn 
Laws, it was nevertheless true that the gradation of classes 























1 Btudes sur I’ Angleterre, Paris, 1856, I, 502, 503. 

Quite recently (in 1894) Mr. Joseph Chamberlain has recalled the fact that 
when he came to Birmingham as a young man, there were only three private 
carriages in the whole town, and that when one of them passed in the streets 
everybody could give the name of its owner. 


THIRD cHAP.| ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 169 





in the manufacturing community of Birmingham remained a 
gentle one, and that consequently it was easy for the leaders 
to reach the masses. The statutory meetings of the Associa- 
tion and its branches only supplied an opportunity or a pre- 
text. 

But the Liberal Association was, 80 to speak, the _firm 
under Soon Mr. 
operations, 16 reaped the benefit of the legitimate and capa: 
sce goa nese ET ee had acquired. The persons 
who stood behind the Association having assumed the direction 
of every public enterprise, in the Town Council and elsewhere, 
a confusion readily grew up in the public mind. Everything 
seemed to be focussed in the Association and its organs, they 
were appealed to on every eg ea intervention was 
solicited in things small and great. Chataberlain and his 
friends, far from clearing up this ar ried_to 
give currency to the idea that the rere was the source 
and the necessary instrument of the public prosperity. 

politics the identification of the interests of the town 

with the work carried on by the Association had a much more 
serious effect. The Association being a Liberal organization, 
could only invite the co-operation of those who belonged to the 
Liberal persuasion. Hence, the Conservatives were excluded 
from public life in Birmingham. It is true that they had them- 
selves been clumsy enough to supply the Radicals with a pre- 
text for making the local administration a party affair. Ousted 
from representation in Parliament by the vote-as-you-are-told 
arrangement, from the share of it which the minority clause 
would have given them, the Conservatives tried to storm the 
political stronghold of Birmingham by means of the municipal 
elections; they fought the battle on political lines but were 
defeated. Long after they had been reduced to impotence in 
the Town Council, the Liberal Association continued to oppose 
them with the utmost bitterness at the annual municipal elec- 
tions. The majority obtained by the Liberals became an over- 
whelming one; eventually they won nearly every seat on the 
Council; but their rancour against the Conservatives was not 
appeased. The latter were dislodged from every position in 
the local government, from every representative body even of 
an entirely non-political character, from charitable institutions, 





































170 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





from the governing boards of schools. Ignored and thrust out 
of public life, the Conservatives in their turn soon came to 
identify the interests of Birmingham with those of the Liberal 
party, and to regard the former with lukewarmness, almost 
with complete indifference. The Liberals of the Association, 
who were for making a clean sweep of the Conservatives, of 
course disclaimed all responsibility for this: ig was the ele¢téral 
body which preferred Liberals to Conservatives, the Liberals 














could not _be expected to start and support Conservative candi- 
dates. And then, they argued, the transformation of the town 
could only have been accomplished by a municipality sure of an 
overwhelming majority, with no fear of having its grand plans 
thwarted by petty cliques.’| The real truth was that the over- 
whelming majorities in the elections for the Town Council 
were required by the prompters of the Association for some- 
thing else as well, for the parliamentary elections. The con- 
version of their Conservative fellow-citizens to their municipal 
schemes would not have quite suited them. The conciliatory 
spirit which would have resulted therefrom would have dimin- 
ished the keenness of the political contests for the parliamen- 
tary seats, all of which they meant to keep for themselves. 
Driven out of the common abode, the Conservatives were 
pursued into their own ground. Referring to them invariably 
as “the enemy,” the Liberals set the populace at them and 
made it resort to violence. Bands of adherents of the Liberal 
Association broke into the Conservative meetings and created 
disturbances in them. This was carried on so methodically 
that the Conservatives were obliged to give up holding public 
meetings in Birmingham. These rowdies did not receive for- 
mal orders from the Liberal Association, but the latter did 
nothing to stop. them; and it was considered an accomplice in, 
if not an instigator of the disorderly proceedings of which its 
opponents were the victims. The Conservatives of course were 
greatly exasperated. Years passed on, the irony of political 
fate converted the old enemies into allies at the time of the 








1 This fear was perhaps exaggerated, for Mr. Chamberlain himself has ad- 
mitted that the great things accomplished by the municipality were done with 
the cordial approval of the bulk of the population, including a large number of 
Conservatives (‘‘ The Caucus,’’ by J. Chamberlain, M.P., Fortnightly Review, 
November, 1878). 


THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 171 





Unionist coalition against the Gladstonian Home Rulers, but 
in the breasts of the Conservatives the injuries rankled as 
deeply as ever. 


Vv 


The political services which the Liberals expected from the 
Association weré faithfully performed: its candidates came in 
at the parliamentary elections with flying colours. Mr. Cham- 
berlain himself was returned in 1876. The discipline in the 
electoral body was perfect, “the forces at the disposal of the 
Liberal Association were not hordes of wayward free lances: 
they were armies of disciplined men, well accustomed to stand 
side by side and to move in unbroken battalions,” as the lead- 
ers of the organization declared with satisfaction.. But Bir- 
mingham was not to be the only city to benefit by this highly 
perfected instrument. Its advantages were to be extended to 
the whole country for the greater triumph of the Liberal cause. 
A campaign of propaganda was started with this object by the 
Birmingham group. Their Association was proposed as a model 
which had only to be imitated. Did not the results obtained by 
its aid speak volumes for it: “This Association has succeeded 
in rendering municipal and political life a consistent, earnest, 
true and enthusiastic hfe among the vast population in which 
it labours, instead of a spasmodic electioneering impulse.” By 
the introduction of politics into all local affairs, “by this exten- 
sion of the idea of Liberalism the Association connected itself 
with the development of the general life of the town.” There 
is no town in which democracy has been so largely interpreted 
as “the life of the people as an organized whole,” and “to the 
Liberal Association the acceptance of this interpretation is 
chiefly due.” “The Association is an agency through which 
men who believe in the possibility of a higher state of civili- 
zation than now exists —who have faith in realizable ideals 
—have attempted and are attempting to carry out clear and 
definite plans for the culture, happiness, and prosperity of the 
community.” ! 

Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Schnadhorst, especially the latter, 
visited the important towns of the Kingdom one after another 


























1“ The Liberal Association —‘ the 600’ — of Birmingham,”’ by H. Crosskey 
(reprinted from Macmillan’s Magazine, February, 1877). 


172 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srEconp part 





to propose the “ Birmingham plan.” After holding small pri- 
vate meetings composed of the most influential, or the most 
active, people of the locality, they explained the plan in public 
meetings. The propaganda was carried on with great activity. 
Along with prominent members of the Association the latter 
despatched emissaries who kept their mission a secret so as to 
work with greater freedom. The Association had a small band 
of them, recruited from among persons such as are found knock- 
ing about great towns, men who dislike the routine of regular 
work and prefer a varied existence, or who have seen better 
days and so fallen out of the ranks. There were not very 
many of them, barely twenty, and they were well paid. All 
of them had the gift of the gab, some of them could wield a 
pen, compose a good “letter to the editor” of a newspaper, or 
at a pinch even write a pamphlet. They worked sometimes at 
Birmingham, sometimes in the other towns, always of course 
preserving their incognito. 

For the rest, the Birmingham propaganda found the ground 
pretty well prepared in the country. The introduction of the 
ballot in 1872, shortly after a considerable increase in_the 
number of electors who were henceforth left to their own 
inspirations on the day of the poll, made it very difficult 
to_manage the elections without preliminary arrangements, 
wethout a more or less closely knit organization. But a still 
stronger argument for the “Birmingham plan” was the defeat 
sustained by the Liberals at the general election of 1874, which 
had returned an enormous Conservative majority to the House 
of Commons for the first time since 1841. The Liberals, who 
imagined that the country had given them a perpetual lease of 
power, could not get over it; and, as generally happens to beaten 
parties, they looked outside their own conduct for the cause of 
the electoral catastrophe and found it chiefly in the fact that 
they were badly organized. The “Birmingham plan” claimed 
to supply a perfect remedy for this deficiency. The defeated 
candidates took a special interest in it, they accepted it with 
the naive confidence of certain gamblers who swallow puffs of an 
“infallible method of winning” at rouge et noir. They did not 


realize the peculiar situation of Birmingham, nor the potenc 
of the social Teadership exercised by Mr. Chamberlain and his 


friends in that city: they thought that the whole se 












































THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 1738 





the patent Association of Birmingham. Consequently there 
was a rush to create “hundreds” on the Birmingham pattern 
in a good many towns, the “Three Hundred,” the “Four 
Hundred,” ete. 








VI 


Profoundly impressed with the importance of their part, the 
“hundreds ” took the earliest opportunity of performing it. 
This was given them by foreign politics. The Eastern ques- 
tion, having come to the front again in consequence of the 
insurrection in Herzegovina, was engrossing the attention of 
Europe, and of England in particular. Disraeli’s government, 
following the then traditional policy of England, was in favour 
of Turkey against Russia, who had taken up the cause of her 
oppressed Slav co-religionists. The news of the Bulgarian 
atrocities aroused a loud cry of horror in England, and the 
country resounded from one end to the other with vehement 
protests against Turkish barbarity. The new Liberal organiza- 
tions eagerly made themselves the instrument of this agitation, 
which they turned at the same time against their political op- 
ponents in power. They accused the Conservative government 
of moral complicity with the Turks. The chiefs of the Liberal 
Opposition -in the House of Commons, who according to the 
rules of the game ought to lead every assault on the rival 
party, were more puneded ; in their attacks on the Government. 
Whether it was that their patriotic anxiety made them think 
that foreign politics was not a proper field forthe display of 
the usual party animosity, or that their (perhaps exaggerated) 
feeling of responsibility as statesmen as well as their unsan- 
guine temperament prevented them from rushing into decisive 
action, they held back. The enthusiasts and busybodies out- 
side Parliament only bestirred themselves all the more en- 
ergetically. The “hundreds” were indefatigable in holding 
anti-Turkish meetings, and in voting resolutions hostile to the 
Ministry. The Birmingham Association encouraged and even 
incited them. At its instigation the other Associations got up 
more than a hundred and fifty “indignation meetings” in a 
few days. It was also on its initiative that delegates from 
several Associations met in conference at Sheffield and Bir- 
mingham to bring about a National Convention on the Eastern 


174 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [SECOND PART 





question. No convention took place, but a monster meeting 
was held in London with the co-operation of many provincial 
delegates. 

‘Lhe unanimity with which the Liberal Associations joined in 
all this movement gave a vague impression of what their action 
might_attain if it was always combined and if it obeyed a 
single impulse. Ideas of this kind were germinating in the 
‘minds of the Birmingham leaders, who had already on one 
or two occasions promoted collective action on the part of 
the Associations. And when the “plan” had been adopted 
in a sufficient number of localities, Mr, Schnadhorst thought 
that the time had come to link the Associations together 
by_permanent ties and assure unity of action by a _cen- 
tral organization. All the Liberal organizations formed on a 
“representative basis” were invited by a circular from the 
Birmingham Association to send delegates to that town for 
the purpose of considering the plan of a federation. A hun- 
dred Associations responded to the appeal, and on the 31st of 
May, 1877, the conference was opened at Birmingham under 
the presidency of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. In an able 
speech, which led off the discussion, he vindicated the utility 
and necessity of the new organization, and showed how it 
was about to open a new chapter, nay a new era in the des- 
tinies of English Liberalism, by establishing a new basis and 
introducing new methods of action. In the new conditions of 
polities, “it has become necessary, as, indeed, it was always 
desirable, that the people at large should be taken into the 
counsels of the party, and that they should have a share in its 
control and management.” ... ‘ Hence the new constitution 
upon which the Liberal Association of Birmingham is founded, 
according to which every Liberal in the town is ipso facto a 
member by virtue of his Liberalism, and without any other 
qualification. The vote of the poorest member is equal to that 
of the richest. It is an Association based on universal suf- 
frage.” After reminding his audience of the success of the 
Association and indulging in a few hits at his opponents, — Lib- 
erals “ignorant of what are the first elements of Liberalism, 
and whose lingering distrust of the good sense and the patriot- 
ism of the people has found expression in machinery —cumula- 
tive vote, minority representation, and I know not what of the 
































THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 176 





same kind, which tends to divide the party of action in face of 
the ever united party of obstruction,” — Mr. Chamberlain held 
out the prospect of a number of new associations founded on 
the same basis and all united by a central organization which 
would form a truly Liberal Parliament outside the Imperial 
Legislature and elected not as it is elected, but by universal 
suffrage. Its duty would be not so much to lay down a new 
Liberal creed, as to make the Liberal policy more definite and 
Liberal action more decisive. The events of the last few years 
had shown only too clearly that the official leaders were the 
last persons to realizg public opinion. The object and the 
merit of the new organization would be to lend expression and 
force to Vanes and obtain for it a better hearing than it had 
hitherto enjoyed. 

The two main points of this speech —the right of the “ peo- 
ple” to a direct initiative in the selection of men and measures 
and the deposition of the traditional leaders — were empha- 
sized more strongly in the fiery harangue delivered by the next 
speaker, Mr. W. Harris, the author of the “ Birmingham plan,” 
who reflected the sincere but aggressive enthusiasm with which 
several of the leading members of the Association were inspired. 
Now that the suffrage has been extended to the urban masses, 
it was, urged Mr. Harris, no longer possible for the leaders in 
London to draw upon the people of the country and say two 
months after date pay to our order in the country for an agi- 
tation on a particular purpose. The people themselves ought to 
decide what the agitation should be and when it should begin. 
The people have shown their power by forcing the Government, 
over the heads of the official leaders of the Liberal party, to 
stop short in its iniquitous and scandalous philo-Turkish policy. 
But if a special agitation were set on foot for each political 
question, what an enormous waste of energy, of time and abil- 
ities, would be entailed. Instead of having an Educational 
League to promote national education, a Reform Union to 
secure Parliamentary reform, a Liberation Society to obtain 
religious equality, instead of all these organizations would it 
not be better to form once and for all a federation which by 
focussing the opinions of the majority of the population in 
great centres of political activity would be able to speak on 
any question that might arise, with all the authority of the 


176 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





voice of the nation. The organization proposed by the speaker 
and his friends would supply this very instrument. 

Such were, as expounded by the principal authors of the 
scheme, the spirit, the character, and the aim assigned to the 
federation. The great extra-constitutional organizations, which 
have made their appearance at different intervals on the political 
stage of England, were now about to enter on a new departure 
with the Birmingham federation: a “ Parliament outside the 
Imperial Legislature” was being created on a permanent foot- 
ing, confronting the national power established by the consti- 
tution and founded on a basis wider even than that of the House 
of Commons elected by a restricted suffrage. At one time the 
mouthpiece, at another the instigator, of opinion, the free Par- 
liament was taking up the general business of political agitation 
on all questions present and to come; to the organs of govern- 
ment and legislation it was adding a new organ — that of agi- 
tation—in the political constitution of the country. 

The scheme of organization which involved such profound 
changes in the working of the constitution, was hardly dis- 
cussed at all. The delegates had only been made acquainted 
with the scheme and the statement of objects and reasons on 
that very morning. However, as soon as it was propounded 
and explained by its authors, a section of the delegates inti- 
mated that their only feeling for it was one of admiration, that 
their adhesion was given already. They bore witness to it as 
persons taking part in religious meetings testify with abun- 
dance of asseverations, for the edification of the audience, how 
they have found salvation. In the same tone delegates bore wit- 
ness to the conference how elections were won, “simply by 
trusting the people.” Thus one delegate had innumerable 
powers, all the powers of darkness, arrayed against him at the 
election: “a Lord-Lieutenant whose land surrounded the place 
for miles; and there was magisterial influence, aristocratic 
influence, legal influence, and nearly all influences against him 
(the speaker); but it was simply by trusting:to the people that 
he was successful. . . . And without a farthing of any legal 
expense, simply by throwing himself upon the people, they not 
only secured the seat, but they secured it by a majority of 
nearly 100 votes. He was only telling them this in order that 
they might never be disheartened in fighting for Liberalism 


THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 177 





if they trusted to the people. In nine cases out of ten the 
people were right, and they would not trust in the people in 
vain.” 

This note of enthusiasm was not the only one heard at the 
conference. In the course of the debate or rather of the 
remarks of the delegates, some exceptions were taken. While 
giving their full adhesion to the federation scheme, several of 
them nevertheless betrayed apprehensions lest the Federation 
would encroach on the independence of the local Associations. 
Besides the legitimate preoccupations inspired by this subject, 
many of the delegates felt a touch of parochial jealousy of Bir- 
mingham taking the lead. The statement of objects and reasons 
of the Federation anticipated these misgivings by declaring 
that “no interference with the local independence of the Fed- 
erated Associations is proposed or contemplated.” Several 
delegates took note of this with eagerness and emphasis. It 
was mentioned by way of illustration that they did not 
intend to submit to the Birmingham practice of turning 
all the local elections into political contests. The admission 
of all comers to membership of the Association without any 
subscription also gave rise to an exchange of observations. 
One delegate demanded that, in conformity with the prin- 
ciple of consulting the people, invoked at the conference 
itself, the scheme should be submitted in the first instance 
to the local Associations which were to be brought within the 
Federation. But the authors of these proposals were not 
allowed to dwell on the subject, and the proposals were sum- 
marily rejected. Finally the scheme was adopted, and the 
“ National Federation of Liberal Associations,” known since 
under the shorter title of “ National Liberal Federation,” was 
founded. Its_object_was according to the statutes, firstly, to 
assist in the organization throughout the country of Liberal 
Associations based on popular representation, and secondly, to 
promote the adoption of Liberal principles in the government 
of the country. The constituted authorities of the Federation 
were: a council formed of delegates of the local Associations, 
which each nominated five to twenty of them, — according to the 
population, —and a general committee composed of a smaller 
number of delegates, plus twenty-five members to be added by 
the committee itself. Being entrusted with the realization of 

VOL. LN 




















178 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp Part 








the “objects” of the Federation, the special duty of the com- 
mittee was to “submit to the Federated Associations the 
political questions and measures as to which united action 
might appear desirable.” 


VII 


The formalities of the constitution of the Federation were 
completed, but this was only the first part of the programme. 
The chief piece was to be given that very evening, as the cir- 
cular which summoned the delegates to Birmingham took care 
to announce: a public meeting with Mr. Gladstone as princi- 
pal orator. The illustrious statesman was coming himself to 
stand godfather to the Federation. The sponsorship derived 
special importance from the exceptional position which Mr. 
Gladstone held at that time. 

Soon after the defeat of the Liberal party at the general 
election of 1874, Mr. Gladstone gave up the leadership of it, 
having decided to bring his long political career to a close and 
to employ the rest of his days in preparing for the great 
moment when he would appear before the Eternal Judge. 
A successor was given him, Lord Hartington, who formally 
assumed the control of the Liberal party. But with the 
rigid organization of English parliamentary parties each led 
by a single chief for the term of his natural life, toward 
whom all eyes are constantly directed, it was by no means 
easy for one who had for years filled the office of leader 
in a brilliant fashion, to retire into political obscurity. For 
the Liberal party and the country he always remained Mr. 
Gladstone, as a king who has abdicated always remains His 
Majesty, Sire! Besides he himself had some difficulty in be- 
coming reconciled to his self-imposed effacement; penance and 
prayer could no more fill up his existence than they could that 
of Charles V in the monastery of St. Juste. His tempestuous 
soul, haunted by the memories of a thousand battles, only re- 
quired an opportunity to burst forth. The opportunity came: 
the Bulgarian atrocities drew Mr. Gladstone from his retreat. 
Overflowing with wrath and indignation he denounced, in a 
series of fiery harangues which stirred the English people to 
its depths, the cruelties of the Turk and the wretched system 
of government which left Christians a prey to the violence of 


THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 179 





savage hordes. In this oratorical campaign Mr. Gladstone, 
who has passed through so many successive and simultaneous 
incarnations, asserted himself once and for all, and with more 
emphasis than ever in that of popular leader. The temperament 
of demagogue (in the etymological meaning of the word) which 
contended with many others in this complex nature, had at 
last, after long years of growth, found its fullest expression. 
At the moment when Palmerston’s death was closing one 
epoch and ushering in another in the history of England, a 
shrewd observer referring to Mr. Gladstone as future leader of 
the Liberal movement in spite of some reactionary tendencies 
displayed by him, foreshadowed that if he did attain that 
position, it would be not as a party favourite but as a popular 
leader, and added: “From the time I first heard Gladstone 
speak when carried beyond himself by the passion of debate, 
I came to the conclusion that nature meant him for a popu- 
lar demagogue, and that the scholarlike moderation that his 
University training had imparted to his habitual utterances 
was a matter of education, not of instinct.” ? 

His generous and impulsive instincts and strong religious 
temperament readily inclined him towards all aspirations which 
were derived from an ideal sense of goodness and justice, and 
which at the same time served his political ends. He embraced 
them with ardour directly events brought them across his path. 
His imagination conjured them up as facing him when he walked 
straight before him, as turning to the left when he turned to the 
left, and to the right when he turned to the right. But why 
should they prevent him from advancing, asked an inward voice. 
Was he their enemy? No; they even had a place deep down in 
his heart, — beyond a doubt they had a place there and a legiti- 
mate place ;— does not reason itself in fact plead their cause ? 
And thereupon the marvellous flexibility of Mr. Gladstone’s in- 
telligence suggested to him one argument after another which 
converted the gratification of these unsatisfied aspirations into 
an irresistible postulate of the logic of men, an imperious com- 
mand of the logic of things. But as his dialectic, which was 
often too admirable, succeeded in carrying conviction to his 
own mind rather than to that of others, he turned by an uncon- 
scious impulse towards the source of his opinions, towards the 


1 New York Nation, 1865, Vol. I, p. 586, ‘‘ Letter from England.” 


180 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





impetuous feeling which brought him in closer touch with the 
people’s hearts. Placing himself in unison with them he 
evoked cries of approbation which mounted like furious waves, 
surging against each other, rising above one another, and finally 
blending in a mighty roar of the ocean. With a single stroke 
he loosed the wallet of AZolus, and if the foolish and the 
blind did not choose to take the same course as the liber- 
ated winds, so much the worse for them. He called the 
people to witness, he made them the judge, the supreme judge 
supposed to have a sound judgment because endowed with an 
upright heart. Logicians might wrangle about the lines of de- 
marcation between politics and ethics, the people were delighted 
with the confusion of the two or the identification of the one 
with the other which Mr. Gladstone made in form as well as in 
substance. The tone of his harangues, always pitched in the 
key of uprightness, of justice, lifted his hearers into a region 
in which the people, perennial victim of injustice, likes to be 
transported, if only in imagination. The respectful intimacy 
with the Almighty which Mr. Gladstone was in the habit of 
affecting stamped him in the eyes of the people as the blessed 
man of the Psalm who walketh not in the counsel of the un- 
godly, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his 
law doth he meditate day and night. Merely listening to him 
one felt as it were brought nearer to the face of the Lord. 
The tone of profound emotion and the fiery passion which ran 
through all Mr. Gladstone’s speeches, supplied the masses with 
the strong sensations which they thirst for, and his fighting 
temperament, which found free vent in his eloquence, flattered 
even the less elevated instincts of combativeness common to 
all crowds and to English crowds more than any others. Thus 
he came to hold the people by a power almost hypnotic, and 
to him might be applied the saying in the East anent a cele- 
brated imam, a military and religious leader: “by his mere 
breath he aroused a tempest in the soul, and the heart of a man 
hung upon his lips.” 

The prestige arising from this immense power was bestowed _ 
on the Federation by the patronage which Mr. Gladstone ex- 
tended to it, and that too at the moment when his popularity_ 
had reached its climax, in consequence of his campaign against 


the Bulgarian atrocities. The imauguration by him of the new 


























THIRD CHAP.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CAUCUS 181 





organization imparted to this provincial association a national 
significance, and, what was not less essential under the circum- 
stances, gave it the stamp of authentic Liberalism. In setting 
up an organization for the general supervision of Liberalism, 
independently of those who controlled it by virtue of a formal 
delegation from the Liberal members of Parliament, the crea- 
tors of the Federation practically denied the authority of the 
official leaders of the party; but with Mr. Gladstone on their 
side they had with them the real leader of Liberalism. Mr. 
Gladstone’s peculiar situation after his abdication of the lead- 
ership alone enabled the Birmingham Radicals to get into this 
fortunate position. Thus in this as in every other respect the 
visit of Mr. Gladstone, arranged by Mr. Chamberlain and his 
friends, was a master-stroke on their part. 

Addressing an enormous meeting estimated at 30,000 per- 
sons, Mr. Gladstone commended the new organization and 
eulogized the popular principle introduced at Birmingham. 
“As the law of popular election,” he said, “is the founda- 
tion of the British House of Commons, so, if I understand you 
aright, it is the principle and practice of your great town that 
local organization shall be governed by the same principle, and 
that free popular choice shall be its basis and its rule. I re- 
joice not merely that you are about to inculcate this lesson, but 
that the large attendance here to-day of many hundreds of 
representatives of the constituencies of the country, met to- 
gether to consider this subject and to join in counsel with you, 
testifies to the disposition which exists to adopt this admirable 
principle of which you have given the example, and of which, 
if it be freely and largely adopted, I, for one, am sufficiently 
sanguine to predict with confidence the success.” After havy- 
ing pointed out that the Liberal party stood in greater need 
of organization than the Tories, who represented immobility 
in politics, Mr. Gladstone recalled in eloquent language the 
share of Birmingham in carrying the Reform Bill and com- 
plimented the town on having once more “raised the banner 
of order in the Liberal party.” On the part to be played by 
the Federation which he had come to inaugurate, on the pro- 
gramme which it was framing, on the sphere of influence 
which it assigned to itself, on the attitude which it was assuming 
towards the leaders of the party and towards the Constitution 


182 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sreconp parr 





in general, Mr. Gladstone vouchsafed no explanations. He 
turned to the Eastern question, and soon the whole audience 
forgot itself in the wild enthusiasm which each of his speeches 
habitually produced. 

For the Federation there remained the great fact that the 
leader of English Liberalism had come forward as its sponsor. 


Public opinion soon directed its attention to this organization 
and to the whole political situation which it entailed; and 
before long an animated discussion arose in the Press and on 
the Platform. It was perfectly natural that party polemics 
should be among the first to seize on the subject. The 
authors of the Birmingham system claimed for it the power 
of making the Liberal party victorious and put it forward 
as an engine of war against the Conservatives. This was 
enough to make the latter look upon it with very unfavourable 
eyes. Lord Beaconsfield in a sarcastic attack on his opponents 
flung the American nickname of “ Caucus” at the new organiza- 
tion, a word which had long been_agsociated in the history of 
American parties with the intrigues and devices of unscrupulous 
electoral wire-pullers and with political corruption. Launched 
by the Prime Minister, a master of epigram, the appellation of 
“Caucus” at once passed into general use in England and 
became 122 onary designation of the new Liberal organiza- 
tions. The Birmingham politicians, after exhibiting some 
signs of ill-humour on the point, thought it would be “better 
frankly to accept the word while trusting to time and experi- 
ence to attach new and more attractive meanings to it.’’! 
They flattered themselves that it might become a glorious 
epithet lke that of Whig and Tory. I shall follow their 
example here and in future use the word “Caucus,” if only 
for the sake of its brevity, to denote the representative party 
organizations started at Birmingham. 





















1 The Caucus, by J. Chamberlain, quoted above. 


FOURTH CHAPTER 
THE GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 


i 


However great may have been the stir made by the ap- 
pearance of the Federation on the stage, and imposing as 
was the ceremony of giving the finishing touch to the work 
of popular organization, its solidity and its duration were 
to depend on the broadness of its basis in the country. The 
Associations of 93 places which sent delegates to the Bir- 
mingham function evidently did not present an adequate sup- 
port. Consequently the leaders of the Federation zealously 
kept up the propaganda extra muros. Max Schnadhorst contin- 
ued to travel about the country to advertise the model associa- 
tion and recommend the adoption of it, which he did in the 
most invating terms: “No subscription. No opinion, creed, or 
position shut a man out. So long as the minority are content 
to submit to the majority, no matter what opinion upon any 
particular question a man held, he was not excluded. Free 
discussion was granted to all so long as perfect loyalty to each 
other existed. The object of their meetings was that they 
should be thoroughly representative in their character. The 
next business was the election of committees in each ward; 
every man was qualified, and those who were willing to serve 
were elected.”’ Mr. Gladstone, too, was inexhaustible in praise 
of the Birmingham system. “I venture to say it is admirable, 
it is sound, it is just, it is liberal, it is popular. ... A man 
is not bound by the Birmingham plan to subscribe to any list 
of political articles. That is one of the rocks on which we 
have split. At Birmingham you know they are tolerably ad- 
vanced, but they don’t attempt to exclude the most moderate.” ? 








1 Speech of Mr. Schnadhorst at the Cambridge Reform Club, January, 1878. 

2 Speech of the 27th September, 1877, at Nottingham. Cf. his speech at 
Southwark, of the 20th July, 1878, and his letter of the 10th September, 1878, 
about the election at Newcastle-under-Lyme. 


183 


184 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [skEconp parr 


The Cancns spread from one town to another, that is to say, 


r i sociations were established_in them _in due 
form. Very often they were started_amid complete indiffer- 
ence on the part of the masses. Sometimes the latter did 
not care for the direct participation of the people in the affairs 
of the party, or for the grand speeches in which it was claimed ; 
sometimes they looked on the “plan” with suspicion, having 
no confidence in the sincerity of the “bourgeois” who had 
undertaken the conduct of it. But in several places the sys- 
tem was well received by the masses and they hastened to turn 
it to account. The attitude of the traditional leaders who be- 
longed to the old ruling classes also varied a great deal. Some, 
considering the new Associations a real means of restoring the 
fortunes of the party, gave them their unqualified adhesion. 
Others, although with little enthusiasm for democratic Or- 
ganizations, thought it wiser not to make a fuss and joined the 
new Associations or actually helped to establish them, and nat- 
urally became their leaders. Others, again, were averse to ab- 
dicating in favour of the masses and opposed the formation of 
the “hundreds.” Sometimes a compromise was arrived at 
which was highly characteristic of the English political tem- 
perament. The masses offered to divide the power with the 
traditional leaders. For instance, instead of electing all the 
“300” by the people, as they would have liked to do, they were 
satisfied with 200 delegates chosen directly in the ward public 
meetings, and allowed the leaders to appoint the remaining 
100 delegates themselves.’ In so doing the masses acknow- 
ledged in a way that the representatives of the old ruling 
classes possessed vested interests in the exercise of politi- 
cal power and influence, and consented to the mixed form 
of government which was the ideal of the classic theorists of 
the art of politics. Lastly, in several towns the old leaders 
offered an energetic resistance to the introduction of the 
Caucus. In places where their influence was not paramount 
they were disregarded, and an Association was founded on the 
Birmingham plan, but this was ngt always sufficient to anni- 














1 The example quoted here refers to the Liberal Association of Chester, the 
circumstances attending the formation of which are related in a parliamentary 
electoral enquiry (Blue Books, 1881, Vol. XXVI,— Report of the Commis- 
sioners). 


FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 185 





hilate the leaders, nor to do away with the old Registration 
Societies or Liberal Associations which existed in the lo- 
cality, and in more than one case the constituency was 
left with two rival Associations each having its own special 
adherents. 

In the central organization the same dualism was still more 
strongly accentuated. The Birmingham Federation claimed to 
control the affairs of the party, but the old institution of parlia- 
mentary Whip with its offices (Central Liberal Association) still 
subsisted. Great as was its confidence in its traditional author- 
ity, it could not help seeing that a new rival power had sprung 
up, and instinctively it retreated before it as before the rising 
tide. By a tacit agreement it abandoned to the Federation all 
the Midland counties of which Birmingham is the capital; it 
had also given up London, but the Federation had no idea of 
being confined within this line of demarcation, it invaded the 
other parts of the Kingdom, hoisted its flag in them, and left 
its garrisons in them in the form of representative Associations. 
Closely pressed by the Caucus, the parliamentary Whip’s or- 
ganization retired within its shell, and subsided more and more 
into the essentially Whig character which the very history of 
the English Liberal party has stamped on it. Every step in 
advance taken by the Birmingham system was so much ground 
won from the old Liberalism; every gesture, every act of the 
new Organization, was a threat or an attack directed against 
the venerable figure of Whiggism. The Birmingham move; 
ment ever yent everywhere brought_out Ae more or less latent or patent 


antagonism SES ea Whigs and Radicals and accentuated it, 


Ii 


The differences within the Liberal pa rty were not_of 
recent date. It has never been a homogeneous party and it 


could not be so considering that 1 ‘represented the party of 
movement, of changes which are conceived or displayed in a 
thousand different ways. United in attack ee ca 
mon enemy, it was always destined by its very nature to relax 
its discipline after the victory was won. As soon as the Par- 
hamentary Reform of 1832 brought a certain number of frankly 
Radical members into the House, friction began between them 



































186 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sreconp part 





and the Whigs. The quarrels and reconciliations which fill 
up the existence of every disunited household brought the his- 
toric Liberal party to the ominous date of 1867. The exten- 
sion of the suffrage to the urban masses effected by the second 
Reform Bill inspired the Radicals with great hopes; they 
would no longer be dragged at the heels of the Whigs, plunged 
in political languor as under Melbourne, or in torpor as under 
Palmerston; on the contrary, it would be they, the Radicals, 
who would give the tone to the policy of the Liberal party, and 
that policy would assume a frank, definite character, free from 
pusillanimous hesitation and compromise. Great disappoint- 
ments were in store for them. The new reformed Parliament, 
elected in 1868, contained an enormous Liberal majority, but 
it was very far from being a Radical one. The Gladstone 
Ministry, which came triumphantly into power, soon wore out 
its prestige. It dissatisfied everybody, alarmed the Conserva- 
tives, and irritated its Radical adherents. Toward the close of 
its administration, in 1873, the advanced section of the Liberal 
party was almost in a state of revolt. It was in vain that Mr. 
Gladstone, to coax it into submission, took John Bright into 
the Cabinet. The discontent was not confined to the halls 
of Parliament, it was very strong in the country itself where, 
owing to the extension of the suffrage, Radicalism henceforward 
had_a broader base of operations than it has ever possessed in 
England. And it was from this quarter, from the provinces, 
that protests proceeded. One of the most violent was made 
by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. As yet quite unknown outside 
Birmingham, he delivered a regular attack on the leaders of 
the party, not sparing Mr. Gladstone himself. He accused the 
Liberal Government of refusing to grapple with reforms, of 
amusing the democracy by bringing forward insignificant Bills, 
of producing half-measures, of ignoring the just demands of the 
working classes, etc.’ The collapse of the Liberal majority at 
the general election of 1874, lent a melancholy tone to these 
recriminations,” but they were far from coming to an end. 
The substitution of Lord Hartington for Mr. Gladstone as head 





























1«°The Liberal Party and its Leaders,” Fortnightly Review, September, 
1873. 

2 Cf. the article by Mr. Chamberlain, ‘‘ The Next Page on the Liberal Pro- 
gramme,’’ Jbid., October, 1874. 


FOURTH CHAP. ] GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 187 





of the party, a genuine representative of aristocratic Whig- 
gism, filled the young Radicals with suspicion and appre- 
hension, which soon developed into vehement and indignant 
protests in consequence of the attitude adopted by Lord 
Hartington and his colleagues on the front bench with regard 
to Eastern affairs. 

It was at this moment that the popular Liberal Associations 
appeared on the scene. Having rushed at once and with great 
ardour into the anti-Turkish campaign, and having thus taken 
up an attitude distinctly opposed to that preserved by the lead- 
ers of the party and their moderate followers, their intervention 
was forthwith invested with a significance which was out of 
proportion to the affair which had been the pretext or occasion 
of it. While the moderates remained calm and apathetic, the 
Associations stormed and raged throughout the country. “ You 
see,” exclaimed the Radicals, “it is there in the meetings, in the 
Associations that the pulse of true Liberalism beats.” The for- 
mation of the Associations, in the midst of the anti-Turkish 
agitation, having set in motion the ardour, the enthusiasm, the 
advanced political feeling of each locality, these manifesta- 
tions gave the impression, to the Radicals at all events, that a 
numerical majority of the nation was behind them. “ You see,” 
they said, “that all the*real Liberals are on our side.” The 
visible organization of the Associations even presented, for the 
first time in the history of the party, the illusion of a tangible 
line of demarcation, of a boundary. Those who were outside 
it, the moderates, the lukewarm, were no longer real Liberals. 
This was the great conclusion which required a practical solu- 
tion, a solution concisely expressed by the demand that they 
should clear out. Such indeed was the cry which resounded 
through the Radical camp. Never had the Whigs had to face 
such a formidable Radical onslaught, nor had such direct aim 
ever been taken at the very heart of their being and of their 
whole existence, which was identified with the destinies of 
English political society as moulded and fashioned by them. 
In fact, it was no longer a conflict of two rival factions, it was 
a collision of two worlds —the one composed of old and more 
or less dried up strata, the other rising from the waves after 
the democratic storm of 1868 and consolidating itself in the 
Caucus. 


188 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srEconp Part 











TEE 
Tp the first of these, in the world of old Liberalism, there were 
t ndamental strata, — parliamentayi ividuali 


The one was contributed by the historic Whigs, the other was 
due to political economy, to philosophy and to the industrial 
revolution. In combating the absolute power of the Crown, 
the Whigs had strengthened the fabric of parliamentarism, 
with the support of their aristocratic followers, who were 
arrayed behind them and kept in good order by social dis- 
cipline. When the middle class, being desirous of a share of 
power, joined their ranks, the Whigs had to come to terms 
with them, to compromise with their character and the ten- 
dencies of their mind trained in ideas or notions of individual 
liberty and commercial freedom. The Whig aristocrats reno- 
vated their old historic claims with these “ principles,” while 
the Liberal middle class acknowledged their traditional posi- 
tion of leaders, and readily confiding in their political experi- 
ence and prestige, also insensibly fell within the sphere of 
their social influence. This fusion gave rise to a body of 
opinion and to a political temperament which, extending in 
numerous successive shades almost to the confines of Toryism 
on the one side and of Radicalism on the other, presented an 
average type equidistant from both extremes, free from their 
defects but sometimes also devoid of their virtues. 

‘The fundamental creed_of Whiggism elaborated in the con- 
tests with the Crown, that is to say that no person, no body 
has absolute power, justified in the mind of the Liberal his 
admiration for the balanced and harmonized government which 
he called the “English Constitution,” and filled him with dis- 
gust for the Jacobin spirit. Authoritarianism, in all its forms 
and all its consequences, whether they affected the State or 
the individual, was an abomination to him. It offended not 
only his ideas but his sensibility still more. His love of 
liberty being derived from education and habit, he was not so 
much a passionate lover, like the classic Radical, as a dilettante 
one. Liberty appealed more to his esthetic sense as a man of 
refinement than burst into a flame within his heart. The fire 
which gave warmth to his soul was a slow fire, well kept up 
because covered with embers, never a red-hot one. Reflective 








FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 189 





without being exactly a thinker, but above all sedate, he was 
not easily carried away. Calm and reserved, he often ap- 
peared cold and frequently haughty with all the haughtiness of 
his aristocratic pedigree or of the fortune which he had amassed 
in business. Endowed in addition to this with a robust confi- 
dence in sound principles, especially those of political economy, 
“some of which are susceptible of mathematical demonstration,” 
he combined with aristocratic haughtiness or plutocratic arro- 
gance the intellectual pride of the doctrinaire or the dull con- 
ceit bred of a little knowledge. These sentiments, joined to 
a genuine spirit of individual independence, made him little 
accessible to the mobile influences of “opinion.” In any event 
he did not admit its absolute power, for this he refused to con- 
cede to any one. A1Jl the more was it repugnant to him to look 
for inspiration or to pretend to take it in the street, in the 
market-place. The feeling of personal dignity which kept him 
back was mingled also with a shade of contempt for and fear 
of the crowd, of the mob. On the other hand, being trained in 
the proprieties of society or in the compromises of business 
life, he naturally fell in with party combinations and readily 
submitted to party exigencies. The mild and somewhat vague 
tolerance which constituted the groundwork of his character, 
thoroughly imbued him with the opportunism and the flexibil- 
ity which are, as it were, the essence of old parties. But at 
the same time this easy sluggish temper surrounded him, so to 
speak, with a rampart against attacks from outside, a sort of 
slope which he could descend with ease, but which did not per- 
mit every one to come to close quarters with him, so that while 
following others he could honestly say to himself that he was 
not dragged along by them. Balance of mind, self-possession, 
moderation, a taste for or a habit of compromise, all these val- 
uable political qualities — which alone had been able to raise 
the fabric of liberty on the aristocratic soil of England, bris- 
tling with privileges, monopolies, selfish interests, traditions, 
and class prejudices — the Whig Liberal was only too conscious 
ef having them, and he was in consequence only too much 
disposed to consider himself born for the work of government 
and _to look on power as a right and a duty at the same _ time. 
In order to enjoy the right he indulged in concessions which 
he readily viewed as sacrifices to duty, and being naturally 























190 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEeconp part 





anxious to spare himself the sacrifices, he guarded the enjoy- 
ment with a jealousy, with a spirit of exclusiveness, which 
tended to keep bores and intruders at a distance. 

But this barrier with which Whig Liberalism surrounded 
i ither invited attack, and instead of serving as a defence 
it exposed it to danger. The Birmingham Radicalism, which 
broke through it, engaged the old Liberalism along the whole 
line. All the gods which the old Liberalism venerated and 
adored, the other was ready to burn; everything which was 
abhorred and feared by the former was extolled and exalted 
by the latter. Proclaiming the deposition of leaders of every 
kind and transferring to the masses the immediate duty of 
governing themselves, demanding for the “ people” the right of 
deciding without appeal on the policy to be adopted, of mark- 
ing out the lines of it themselves, the new Liberalism repudi- 
ated the whole Whig doctrine which holds that in a free 
country no one, no individual nor body however numerous, 
wields an absolute, undivided, direct power; it overthrew the 
imposing and ingeniously constructed fabric of government 
in which all the parts balance each other and are carried for- 
ward in a harmonious and unbroken movement; it made the 
people not only the primary source of power, but the authority 
which prescribed the acts of the supreme government, follow- 
ing only its own will and obeying only its own inspirations 
of the moment; for the regular working of established organs, 
controlled by principles and traditions supplied by experience, 
it substituted the irregular action of extra-constitutional bodies, 
on which the former would only have to model their move- 
ments. In one word, it laid sacrilegious hands on the holy 
ark of parliamentary institutions which contained the whole 
Whig law. 

Rejecting the principles of the Whigs as too narrow and 
unbending, Radicalism condemned their conduct as too faint- 
hearted; for the latitudinarianism of their political conscience 
it substituted a jealous and exclusive creed expressed in the 
formula, “trust in the people”; those who would not con- 
fess the faith of “confidence in the people” had no place 
in the fold of the new Liberalism; and the sincerity of the 
believer’s faith was proved only by following the numerical 
majority of the “pcoople,” or those who were supposed to 











FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 191 





represent it. - With little relish for the discipline which was 
demanded in consequence, the Whigs had a still greater dis- 
like to the uninterrupted stream of enthusiasm turned on 
by the “hundreds” and their meetings. . The sentimental 
note on which Mr. Gladstone played with a skill which was 
all the more masterly because it was natural to him, did 
not vibrate within them; they mistrusted sentimentalism in 
politics, or, as their detractors asserted, they ignored the 
influence of moral sentiment in the sphere of politics. The 
loud tones, the noisy ways, the exuberant gestures of the 
Caucus people were quite enough to jar on them; by their 
placid temperament and their social relations they were, or 
considered themselves, too much of gentlemen to be able to 
put up with the “want of sobriety in language and of dig- 
nity in demeanour” which offended them in the advanced 
section of the party. The old Whig Liberals were thus 
attacked in their principles, in their conduct, in their habits 
and their ideas of decorum. They were wounded in their 
faults as well as in their virtues. And there was no chance 
of the latter securing forgiveness for the former; in politics 
virtues are often expiated even more than faults. 

The Whigs received notice to quit, they had held their 
position only too long; they had been, they were told, simply 
a clique engaged in the selfish pursuit of power, they were out 
of sympathy with all the aspirations of the nation, they did 
not understand its requirements, they were incapable of direct- 
ing it. In vain did the moderates protest that they still had 
a great part to play; that the leadership in the Liberal party 
was their natural function; that no proof existed that the 
democratic spirit had developed to a point which justified the 
placing of Radicalism in power. It was of no avail, they said, 
hoisting the red flag of democracy; the old social conditions 
had not disappeared and England was still, politically speak- 
ing, a nation of traders governed for the most part by landed 
proprietors, or of shopkeepers whose one ambition was to be 
raised to the class of landed proprietors. England, to quote 
the saying applied to France, was Left Centre, equally hostile 
to Tory stagnation and to the utopias of men of extreme 
opinions. The divergent attitude of the leaders and of the 
masses in the Eastern question, which had been triumphantly 


192 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





turned to account against the moderates, in no way marked 
the difference between aristocratic tendencies and demo- 
cratic aspirations; it was not Whiggism but statesmanship 
and good sense to keep cool in times of popular excitement, 
to distrust the capacity of indignation meetings to conduct 
foreign policy. The crime of the moderates or of the Whigs, 
as their opponents affected to call them, consisted in holding 
fast to principles, in looking beyond the democratic passions 
of the moment and fixing their attention on the liberties and 
the permanent interests of the nation. “For us the question 
is not to know what is popular, but what is reasonable and just, 
and we consider it one of the duties of statesmen to combat 
popular illusions even at the sacrifice of place and power.”? 
All these grounds of defence pleaded by the Whigs were so 
many confessions of guilt in the eyes of the Radicals, they 
seemed to them only to corroborate the charge that the official 
leaders were no longer in touch with the feelings and ideas 
of the nation, and as the leaders were moderates and repre- 
sentatives of moderates, both were confounded in one common 
reprobation. The war-cry raised by the “ Birmingham plan”: 
down with the leaders, and up with the people, being converted 
in these circumstances into the cry: down with the Whigs, war 
on the moderates, up with the Radicals, the popular movement 
inaugurated in the Midlands inevitably turned against the 
moderates with redoubled force. And for hurling its shafts 
the permanent Organizations on a representative basis sup- 
plied it with a perfected and hitherto unknown engine of war. 


- 


IV 


The Eastern question remained to the end up to the Berlin 
Congress, the sheet-anchor of the Caucus. Its central organ, 
fastening on the foreign policy of the Government, deemed it 
necessary to take up an attitude, whether of blame or approval, 


1 Among the numerous writings to which this controversy gave rise in the 
Press, may be quoted, besides the two articles by Mr. Chamberlain already 
mentioned: ‘‘ Whigs and Liberals,’’ by Goldwin Smith (Fortnightly Review, 
1878, vol. 23) ; ‘‘ Liberals and Whigs,?’ by Geo. Brodrick (Ibid.); ‘‘A Word 
for Indignation Meetings,’ by Goldwin Smith (Ibid. vol. 24); ‘‘ The Govern- 
ment and the Opposition” (Edinburgh Review, January, 1879); ‘‘ Whigs, 
Radicals, and Conservatives ’’ (Quarterly Review, 1880, vol. 150). 


FOURTH CHAP. |] GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 193 





in all the incidents of the crisis; at one time with reference to 
the summoning of troops from India, at another in regard to 
the participation of England in the Congress. In the local 
Associations the anti-Turkish movement, which was tolerably 
spontaneous and genuine at the start, soon lost this charac- 
ter; the emotion aroused by Mr. Gladstone’s agitation had time 
to calm down, and the meetings and demonstrations of the 
caucuses were kept up rather by vis inertiae and at the instiga- 
tion of Birmingham. But this did not make them display 
greater wisdom. For the inauguration of the direct influence 
of the masses on public affairs it was if anything to be re- 
gretted that their first appearance should have been in the prov- 
vince of foreign policy, in which popular emotion, the ardour, 
and the enthusiasm, nay even the excellent intentions of the 
multitude, are not indispensable or useful factors. It is there- 
fore not surprising that in their anti-Turkish campaign the 
Associations should have given striking proof of their want of 
discernment on more than one occasion. The speeches made and 
the resolutions adopted were often characterized by extrava- 
gance and ignorance of the first conditions in which the English 
political system works, as, for instance, the resolutions relating 
to the impeachment of Lord Beaconsfield and other moves of 
the same kind. 


It is beyond a doubt that jn several localities the new Organ- 


izations, apart from _ the Eastern question which appealed to 
the generous instincts of the masses, had called forth a great 
deal of civic enthusiasm _and_of honest_and genuine interest 
in the public weal. But it is no less true that these these impulses — 
stood in need of guidance, and that this guidance was very 
often non-existent. It was easy enough to copy the Birming- 


ham Organization, but it was not so easy to reproduce the 


merits of the men who controlled it, the public spirit which they 
contrived to create_and maintain. ‘The Radical leaders who 
joined in the movement lacked, as a rule, the first’ quality of 
leaders —a sense of the fitness of things, and more than one 
extravagant act_of the Associations, during the Eastern crisis 


for instance, and afterwards, must be attributed wholly to 
them. On the other kat a the men with more balance who 
possessed influence in the locality, and who hastened to accept_ 
the Caucus, often had not sufficient enthusiasm or sincerity to 


NOLS 1 —:'0 





















































194 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





@gercise a beneficial influence on the masses. Belonging for 
the most part to the old ruling classes, they were more anxious 
about preserving the reality of the power which they had had 
to relinquish in appearance. In any event their mind, im- 
prisoned in the narrow circle of party ideas, could not take 
in the real grandeur of the work implied in the political educa- 
tion of the masses, and even if they could do so, these traders 
or manufacturers who thought themselves Liberals because they 
swore by Mr. Gladstone were incapable of taking the lead in it. 
In the most favourable circumstances, the old leaders who had 
joined the Caucus succeeded by dint of moderation and tact in 
restraining the aggressive zeal of the enthusiasts and in keeping 
the peace between the different sections of the party. In places 
where this was not the case, where men of this kind were not 
forthcoming, or the new electors were of a less conciliatory tem- 
per, the Caucus, which rallied round it the advanced and ardent 
spirits of the party, soon became the stronghold of a faction 
imbued with a séctarian spirit and all the more intolerant and 
imperious because the popular form of its constitution gave it 
a pretext for putting itself forward as the only true, legitimate 
representative of the Liberal party 




















Vv 


In the Caucus, this spirit speedily displayed itself in the 
discharge pease duty, which was the choice of candidates 
for the parliamen elections. Conformably to the Birming- 
an doctrine, Se eld bea stand for Parlia- 
ment irrespective of the Caucus. In_order to be true to the 
democratic spirit, the caucuses did not make a selection in the 
real sense of the word, but organized a sort of ‘public competi- 
tion among the candidates by requiring from them complete 
submission beforehand. The members whom the Caucus found 
in possession had to submit to the same process if they 
aspired to re-election. The fact that_the Caucus often _rep- 
resented only a fraction—of—the—party, and_that the most 
passionate, the most ardent, was not calculated to secure it 
adhesion in every quarter, and the pretensions of the new 
Organizations aroused vehement protests. One of these cases 
made a great stir throughout the country, owing to the emi- 

































































oo 


FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS ' 195 





nence of the protesting party. The conflict arose at Bradford 
between the Caucus and one of the members for the town, 
W. E. Forster, the well-known statesman. 

Forster had represented Bradford in Parliament for eighteen 
years. Having been returned in consequence of his local 
notoriety, he was not long in achieving a considerable position 
in the House, and soon rose to the first rank of statesmen in 
the Liberal party. The brilliance of his political career, 
being reflected on the town which he represented, accentuated 
the feelings of devotion and affection which had bound him to 
his constituents from the very first. But for some time past, 
a small fraction of the constituency, inspired by religious 
passions, had pursued Forster with unrelenting animosity. It 
could not forgive him the part which he had played in the 
creation of a system of popular instruction. When Forster 
became Minister of Education in Gladstone’s first Cabinet 
(1868-1874), England was still without a system of primary 
instruction, the introduction of which, as will be remembered, 
ran counter to the fanaticism of the various religious sects, 
especially of the Nonconformists, who could not agree as to 
what religious teaching should be given. Forster boldly 
grappled with the question and passed, by way of compromise, 
an organic law of primary education which made instruc- 
tion obligatory and undenominational to the extent that all 
religion was excluded wherever the population so desired it, 
and which allowed the reading of the Bible in the schools, 
without any dogmatic instruction or a catechism, in cases where 
the School Boards elected by the ratepayers did not pro- 
hibit all religious teaching. The law also provided that the 
Treasury should continue its grants to the establishments for 
primary education by distributing them among the Board 
schools as well as the denominational schools, on condition, 
however, that they should submit to Government inspection, 
and that religious instruction should only be given before or 
after school hours and be optional for the schoolchildren. 

Hardly was the law passed (in 1870) when the extreme 
Radicals denounced it as contrary to “logic ” because it only 
permitted the introduction of obligatory instruction, but did 
not enforce it against the will of the population. Again, the 
provisions of the law relating to the denominational schools 


1968 |= DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





exasperated an important section of the Liberal party, — the 
Nonconformists, who considered that the Act showed too 
much favour to the Established Church by keeping up the 
grants to its schools while not prohibiting them from giving 
religious instruction. In reality, it was not hostility to re- 
ligion which inspired the opposition of the Dissenters, far 
from it: as a general rule, the adherents of the various 
Nonconformist sects can vie with the followers of the Estab- 
lished Church in bigotry and fanaticism, but being separated 
from their great rival by an irreconcilable jealousy and by the 
memory of the persecutions which it has inflicted on them in 
the past, their one object is to “ écraser Vinfame.” Joining the 
extreme Radicals, the militant Nonconformists began an agi- 
tation against the law of 1870 and its author throughout the 
country. The agitation was directed from Birmingham by 
the same men who were destined to lead the Caucus two or 
three years later, — Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Schnadhorst (who had 
entered public life as secretary of the “ Central Nonconform- 
ist Committee”), and other Radical Dissenters. The con- 
nections which the Birmingham group formed on this occasion 
were subsequently of great assistance to them for the Caucus, 
for it was precisely the Nonconformists brought into the field 
against Forster’s Act who nearly everywhere formed the rank 
and file of the caucuses. 

The mode of election of the School Board established by the 
law, especially the cumulative vote, which gave minorities the 
power of getting on the Board, also met with an unfavourable 
reception from the opponents of the Act of 1870, and they de- 
voted their energies to nullifying it by devices of electoral 
organization. We have already seen the Birmingham group 
at this work; the tactics of “vote as you are told” failed on 
this occasion, but met with success in other places where the 
calculations were more accurately made, at Leeds for instance.’ 
Although in more than one case, especially in London, the oppo- 


1 Forster was much distressed by this. ‘‘ We do not want party lines in 
these elections,’’ he said; ‘‘ we want everybody, whether he belongs to a big 
party or to a little one, to have his fair say in the choice of the people who 
are to manage the education of his children; and I think you Liberals of 
Leeds have behaved very badly in upsetting the original intention of Par- 
liament when it passed the Bill’ (T. W. Reid, Life of W. E. Forster, Lond. 
1888, I, 517). 


FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 197 





nents of Forster’s Act had been among those who had obtained 
a seat on the Board by means of the cumulative vote, they none 
the less made a grievance of it against Forster.! 

After Gladstone’s retirement Forster was, next to the new 
leader of the party, Lord Hartington, the most conspicuous 
statesman on the Liberal staff, and in this capacity he shared 
in the policy of reserve which the chiefs of the Liberal Opposi- 
tion in Parliament maintained during the Eastern crisis, and 
which brought on them so many attacks from the Radicals. 


VI 


Such was Forster’s situation when Bradford was provided 
with a proper Caucus, which was at once filled with fanatical 
Nonconformists and Radicals of more enthusiasm than sober- 
mindedness. In the statutes which it adopted in 1878 it 
incorporated the whole Birmingham doctrine, written and 
unwritten. It took up the provision which placed candidates 
and members under the orders of the Caucus, and it hastened 
to demand from Forster recognition of this rule. Article 15 
of the statutes, which soon became quite famous through- 
out England, provided that it should be “required from the 
proposer of any intending candidate for the representation 
of the borough in Parliament, that he should, before the 
time of making such proposal (having previously obtained the 
consent of such intending candidate), give an assurance to 
the General Committee of the Association that the candidate 
he proposes will abide by their decision.” The Chairman of 
the “300” of Bradford, a Nonconformist of a highly militant 
type, who had opposed Forster tooth and nail at his last re- 
election (in 1874), now held out the olive-branch to him by 
offering to propose him to the Caucus as candidate, only he 
mildly added as a condition that Forster should undertake to 
submit to the Caucus. Forster refused, he was not prepared 
to be adopted by the Caucus at this price. “I cannot bind 
myself to a rule which even theoretically enables any Associ- 
ation to stand between me and the constituency I have so long 
represented. I am a member for the borough, and I cannot 
think it right to make myself the nominee or the delegate of 


1 Cf. Forster’s letter of the 7th March, 1871, to John Bright (Zbid., 527-529). 


198 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEeconp part 





any organization within the constituency, however important 
that organization or however I may agree with it in political 
opinion.” Criticising the rule of Article 15 from a general point 
of view, Forster pointed out how little it was in accordance 
with good sense: “it might be that the committee might be mis- 
taken in the grounds of their decision. It is possible that the 
member might be able to persuade not merely the majority of 
the constituency, but the majority of his party, that he is right, 
and yet the condition to which this rule would bind him would 
prevent him from appealing to his constituents or to his party 
or even to second thoughts of the committee. If such a rule 
became general, it would greatly injure the political life of - 
the country. Imagine a wave of prejudice overwhelming the 
constituencies, as for instance, at the time of the Crimean 
War;' would it be desirable that the Cobdens and Brights 
and Milner-Gibsons of the future should be bound not to offer 
themselves for re-election, and should be forced to hold their 
tongues and submit to ostracism in silence because they had 
undertaken not to stand if the majority of a committee dis- 
-agreed with them?” The Chairman of the “300” replied in an 
arrogant tone that with a candidate who ventured to ignore or 
thwart the decisions of the party in order to follow his personal 
interest, his own duty was to support the Association; that a 
candidate had no right to appeal to the whole constituency ; 
that he owed obedience to his party and to its committee 
appointed in due form; and that if Forster respected himself 
he would bow to the rule laid down in Article 15. This 
attitude of the Caucus was aggravated by the fact that the 
Chairman of the Bradford “300” had himself admitted that 
there was no difference of opinion between Forster and the 
Association at that time. If this was so, if there was no 
doubt as to the views of the constituents and the member 
being in unison, what was the object and the meaning of the 
ordeal to which he was being subjected? There could be only 
one: to make Forster pass under the yoke of a committee 
which claimed to represent the people, to assert the power of 

1 The Crimean War aroused the combative instincts of the nation, and in 
the first general election which followed it (of 1857) the members who pro- 
tested against the aggressive foreign policy of Palmerston were defeated at 


the polls. In this disaster of the peace party Cobden and Bright themselves 
lost their seats. 


FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 199 





the Caucus over every one who desired to take part in public 
life, however high the position conferred on him by his char- 
acter and talents and however honourable his past. Mr. 
Schnadhorst himself, with the authority which belonged to 
him in these particular matters, had propounded this maxim 
when explaining the “Birmingham plan”: “John Bright 
himself,” he said, “ would have to be nominated and stand or 
fall by the voting.” ? 

The publication in the newspapers therefore of the corre- 
spondence between the Chairman of the Caucus and Forster 
produced a great impression throughout the country. The 
public grasped the fact that it was not a merely local matter, 
that_a new tendency was seeking admittance into political 
life and degrading the representative of the people in Parlia- 
ment to the status of a clerk at the mercy of a committee tak- 
ing the place of the whole body of electors and usurping its 
rights it cs. The Times only expressed the views of 
a considerable section of opinion when it said that this corre- 
spondence was a warning which ought not to be disregarded. 
If a public man like Forster could be forced to submit to the 
yoke of the Association, what must be expected from less con- 
spicuous and less independent politicians? ‘“ We have to 
thank the Bradford ‘300,’” said the great newspaper, “ for 
giving us clearly to understand the conditions to which, in 
the opinion of the ‘organizing’ party, public life in England 
must henceforward be subject.” ? 

In the meanwhile the town of Bradford was plunged in pro- 
found agitation. Forster possessed many friends and admirers 
in his constituency. The Caucus set to work to detach his adhe- 
rents, to estrange the masses from him and to isolate him. A 
violent campaign was started, he was denounced from house to 
house, and stigmatized in meetings as a traitor to the cause of 
Liberalism. The watchword given by the leaders of the Cau-_ 
cus was taken up in the ward meetings by worthy folk who 
thought that the triumph of the popular cause was really at 
stake, and each tried to shout his loudest against Forster.® 























1 Cambridge Independent Press, 12th of January, 1878. 

2 Times, 12th of August, 1878. 

8 In the course of the enquiry into the Caucus which I undertook at Bradford 
one of these ward orators, who had learnt wisdom by time and events, said to 
me in a deprecatory tone: ‘‘I was one of these shouters.’’ 


200 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





His firm attitude won him sympathy all over the country ; poli- 
ticians belonging to all parties congratulated him and thanked 
him for fighting the good fight. Mr. Gladstone thought fit to 
interpose in the conflict and offered his services to his old 
colleague in order to put an end to it. Forster intimated to 
Mr. Gladstone that there was nothing to arbitrate about under 
the circumstances, but that he would have been very glad to 
see him express his opinion on the question of the organization 
in general, because, he wrote to him, “I think the advocates of 
some such rule as the Bradford one have a lurking hope that 
you are on their side. The Birmingham people disavow this 
rule;* but I am not quite sure that I have as much faith as 
you have even in the Birmingham system, mainly for the 
reason that I doubt any permanent committee, or any com- 
mittee annually elected in quiet times, thoroughly representing 
the party when an election is imminent. Birmingham itself 
may be an exception, political interest, not to say excitement, 
there being both strong and abiding; but generally I suspect 
the men who elect the committees are themselves but a small 
part of the party. And is not this likely to happen — either 
that, being thus small, they would degenerate into wire-pullers, 
as in the States ; or, as in Bradford, represent the agitation for 
disestablishment, or some such special question? In either 
case there is a chance of the committee being disavowed by 
the party when the election really comes. ... I therefore 
rather prefer the old system of our towns; namely, a perma- 
nent committee to look after the registration, but a choice 
of candidates by the whole party just before the election. It 
seems to me one of the best safeguards against the wire-pullers 
—that is, against the real danger besetting large constituencies 
—is to so frame the machinery as to keep members as much as 
possible in communication and contact with the whole constit- 
uency, and candidates as much as possible with the whole 
party.” ? 

The Bradford Caucus, which did not expect that its preten- 


1 The disavowal was more formal than real. Mr. Schnadhorst was of opinion 
that ‘‘ the objection to the Bradford rule seems to be that it embodies in a law 
a principle of the very greatest value but which should be applied with modera- 
tion and discretion, and with a due regard to circumstances and persons ’’ (Let- 
ter to the Times, 23d of August, 1878). 

2 Life of W. E. Forster, WU, 213. 


FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 201 





sions would give rise to protests in the whole country, was at 
last obliged to make a concession which put an end to the con- 
flict, for the moment at all events: the wording of the famous 
paragraph 15 as to the undertaking to be demanded from the 
candidate was altered in an optional sense, “ may be required” 
being substituted for the imperative “shall be required.” 
Forster thereupon agreed to be nominated by the Association. 
In reality the concession made by the Caucus, being almost 
entirely one of form, was not very great, and if any one it was 
Forster who gave way. All his firmness was spent in solemn 
protests and high-sounding declarations." 

The struggle between Forster and the Bradford Caucus gave 
a most powerful impulse to the controversy raised by the Bir- 
mingham system and definitively made the Caucus one of the 
questions of the day for a long time to come.” 

The discussions on the Caucus started in the Press did not 
produce a great effect on the life of the new Organizations. 


1W. M. C. Torrens, the distinguished Liberal member of Parliament, 
remarks on this subject in his Memoirs (Twenty Years in Parliament, Lond. 
1893, p. 358): ‘‘ After the passing of the Education and the Ballot Acts, Mr. 
Forster believed himself strong enough to set the Caucus at defiance, but by 
degrees the instinct of expediency which was strong within him, though 
sedulously kept out of notice by his bluntness of manner, prevailed, and to 
the regret of all who respected him, he consented to be put up with others as 
a candidate at the next election, on the suppressed assurance that no attempt 
would be made in reality to oust him in favour of a stranger.” 

2 Cf. Edw. D. J. Wilson, ‘‘ The Caucus and its Consequences’’ (Nineteenth 
Century, October, 1878) ; Geo. Howell, ‘‘ The Caucus System and the Liberal 
Party’ (New Quarterly Magazine, October, 1878) ; W. Frazer Rae, ‘‘ Political 
Clubs and Party Organizations’? (Nineteenth Century, May, 1878); Geo. 
Brodrick, ‘‘ Liberal Organization ”’ (in the collection of articles published under 
the title Political Studies, Lond. 1879); Th. Hare, ‘‘ The Reform Bill of the 
Future’ (Fortnightly Review, 1878, vol. 23) ; L. Courtney, Speech in the House 
of Commons of the 8th May, 1878 (Hansard, CCXXXVIII, 1010); Times, 
31st of July and 12th of August, 1878; “The Government and the Opposition ”’ 
(Edinburgh Review, January, 1879) ; Montague Cookson, ‘‘ The Nation before 
Party’ (Nineteenth Century, May, 1879) ; Goldwin Smith, ‘‘ Decline of Party 
Government’’ (Macmillan’s Magazine, July, 1877); Joseph Chamberlain, 
“A New Political Organization’”’ (Fortnightly Review, July, 1877); ‘‘ The 
Caucus ”’ ([bid., November, 1878) both reprinted in pamphlet form, Birming- 
ham, 1879; H. W. Crosskey, ‘‘ The Birmingham Liberal Association and its 
Assailants ’’ (Macmillan’s Magazine, December, 1878) ; Speeches of J. Cham- 
berlain at the annual meetings of the Council of the National Liberal Federa- 
tion, of the 22d January, 1879, and 3d February, 1880; Letter from him to 
the Times, 1st August, 1878; Letters of Mr. Schnadhorst to the Zimes of the 
20th and 23d August, 1878. 


202 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp Part 





They followed the impulse given them from Birmingham with- 
out paying heed to the attacks of the opponents of the system. 
The lesson conveyed by the Forster incident was almost lost on 
the Associations, and in other places besides Bradford the can- 
didates or the old members who sought re-election were sum- 
moned to undertake beforehand to submit to the decisions of 
the Caucus.' These tactics, perhaps, in some places, as at 
Bradford, served to conceal, by means of general principles 
and rules, the hostility of a section of the party towards cer- 
tain candidates and groups of electors who supported them. 
But it is possible that they were adopted in all sincerity, as 
the logical result of the “plan” of popular organization, and 
cases occurred in which, at the request of the candidates con- 


1It may not be amiss to quote the case of Mr. (since Sir) John Simon, mem- 
ber for Dewsbury, who, like Forster, refused to submit to the demands of the 
Caucus. Anticipating the reproaches levelled at Forster of wishing to be 
returned with the help of Tory votes, Simon declared himself ready to with- 
draw his candidature in case a majority of the Liberal electors, consulted 
beforehand, decided against him; but he refused to recognize any authority 
other than that of the Liberals themselves. The reasons which he gave for 
this completed in some points the arguments already used by Forster and his 
friends. ‘‘I object to it,’’ he said, ‘‘as an infringement of the electoral 
freedom of the constituency. It would virtually transfer from them the 
whole electoral power of the borough, so far at least as the Liberal electors 
are concerned, to the Association or its committee. It would, in effect, re- 
store the old system of nomination boroughs. ... For a body of gentlemen 
‘to form themselves into an association, in order to introduce a candidate of 
their choice, and to use all lawful influence to secure his return, is a perfectly 
fair and legitimate object; but it is quite another thing for them to call upon 
a candidate to bind himself beforehand to a possible ostracism, and by so 
narrowing the field of choice, to deprive a whole constituency or a whole 
political party, of the opportunity of exercising their undoubted right to 
return the man they would most prefer.’’ And what, according to Mr. 
Simon, increased the impropriety of the pretension put forward by the Cau- 
cus, was that the engagement required from the candidate was not a reciprocal 
one; the Association could not guarantee him the votes of all its members. 
In fact, the statutes of the Association of his constituency, as well as those 
of several others, provided that if the members did not wish to vote for 
the candidate adopted by the Caucus, they were to abstain from voting or 
resign before taking any hostile step against the candidate selected by the 
committee. While this rule made the support to be given to the candidate an 
optional matter, whereas the candidate bound himself unconditionally, on the 
other hand it increased the servitude of the electors. ‘‘I unhesitatingly 
declare it as my opinion, that a rule binding electors to vote, or to abstain 
from voting, ina particular way, or practically compelling them to make 
known how they vote is a violation of the spirit and object of the Ballot Act. 
That Act was intended by means of secrecy to secure to the elector complete 
freedom in the exercise of the franchise ’’ (Times, September, 1879). 


FOURTH CHAP. | GROWTH OF THE CAUCUS 203 





cerned, the chiefs of the Organization, Mr. Chamberlain for in- 
stance, intervened and advised the local caucuses to adhere less 
strictly to principle and not to insist upon the submission of 
the candidates. At the approach of the general election in 
which the combined forces of the Liberal party were about to 
deliver the final assault to dislodge the Tories from power, the 
attitude of the caucus leaders became somewhat more concilia- 
tory, and Mr. Chamberlain was anxious to give assurances that 
“there was no intention of ignoring their moderate friends, that 
though out of sight they were never out of mind.” “The Rad- 
icals,’ Mr. Chamberlain remarked, “are, I venture to say, the 
majority of the Liberal party. Yet sufferance is the badge of 
ali our tribe, and we have conceded — we are conceding — we 
will concede to our moderate friends, to their convictions, even 
to their prejudices, if they will meet us somewhere on the road 
in a similar spirit.” “We feel we want the aid of every man 
who is opposed to the policy of the present government.” ' 


1 Speech at Darlington, on the 3d of February, 1880, at the meeting of the 
Council of the National Liberal Federation. 


FIFTH CHAPTER 
THE CAUCUS IN POWER 
3 


SnHortiy afterwards Parliament was dissolved, electioneer- 
ing began, and Mr. Gladstone commenced his famous Midlo- 
thian campaign. The Tory seats went down one after another, 
and finally the Conservative majority was replaced by an enor- 
mous Liberal majority. Mr. Chamberlain thereupon uttered a 
shout of triumph and defiance: “By this token know ye the 
power of the Caucus and bow before it!” This was the pur- 
port of the proclamation which he issued in the form of a letter 
to the Times. Mr. Chamberlain pointed out that in almost 
every borough which possessed representative Liberal Associa- 
tions, “sometimes called the ‘Caucus’ by those who have not 
taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the details of 
the Birmingham system,” the Liberal candidates had been vic- 
torious. “This remarkable success is a proof that the new 
Organization has succeeded in uniting all sections of the party, 
and it is a conclusive answer to the fears which some timid 
Liberals entertained that the system would be manipulated in 
the interest of particular crotchets. It has on the contrary 
deepened and extended the interest felt in the contest, it has 
fastened a sense of personal responsibility on the electors, and 
it has secured the active support, for the most part voluntary 
and unpaid, of thousands of voters, who have been willing to 
work hard for the candidates in whose selection they had for 
the first time had an influential voice.” The candidates chosen 
were Liberals of a firmer and more decided stamp; a well-filled 
purse was not a sufficient passport; preference was accorded 
to candidates who had won their spurs in political contests 
and had given proof of loyalty to their principles and of ca- 
pacity to uphold them. “Altogether,” concluded Mr. Chamber- 

204 


FIFTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 205 





lain, “for good or for evil, the Organization has now taken firm 
root in this country, and politicians will do well to give it in 
future a less prejudiced attention.”’ Mr. Schnadhorst pro- 
claimed in his turn that “it could be no longer denied that the 
Caucus was a great fact.” 

A few days afterwards Mr. Chamberlain went straight into 
the new Gladstone Ministry, with a seat in the Cabinet,” with- 
out having ever held a subordinate ministerial office, and with 
barely four years of parliamentary life behind him. Among 
the comments to which this rapid elevation gave rise, some 
accounted for it by the services which Mr. Chamberlain had 
rendered to the Liberal party by the introduction of the Cau- 
cus, and which Mr. Gladstone was anxious to acknowledge. 
This was supposed to be the opinion of Mr. Chamberlain him- 
self. In reality, there was not much foundation for Mr. 
Chamberlain’s remarks on the glorious part played by the Cau- 
cus, and still less for the view that Mr. Gladstone so far 
admitted the truth of them as to feel bound to give the leader 
of the new Organization a place in his Ministry. Mr. Cham- 
berlain’s elevation was due to considerations unconnected 
with his electoral activity.* As to the part which the Caucus 
was supposed to have played in the elections of 1880, it was 
very far from having been as important as Mr. Chamberlain 
tried to make out. The factors which had brought about the 
defeat of Lord Beaconsfield were many and various. First of 
all came the immense popularity of Mr. Gladstone, his pas- 
sionate eloquence which stirred the masses as in the time of 
the agitation against the “ Bulgarian atrocities ”; the adventur-- 


ous foreign policy of Disraeli which kept the country continu- 


1 Times, 13th of April, 1880. 

2In England, as is well known, the Ministry or Administration is distin- 
guished from the Cabinet. The latter contains only the most important 
members of the Ministry, selected by the Premier, so that not only the 
Under-Secretaries of State and the great officers of the Royal Household 
who change with the Ministry, but even some heads of departments, are or 
may be outside the Cabinet. 

3 Cf. Frazer Rae, ‘‘ The Caucus in England,” International Review, N.Y., 
August, 1880. 

4It appears that Mr. Gladstone, wishing to take a representative of the 
advanced section into the Ministry, selected Mr. Chamberlain by a process 
of elimination, all the other candidates having been rejected for various 
reasons, 





206 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





ally in an unsettled state and affected the stability and security 
of the immediate future, so necessary to a mercantile nation, 
had lost the Conservative Ministry a good many votes; many 
moderates had voted for the Liberals not so much from a wish 
to bring them_into power as with the object of turning out 
the too enterprising Disraeli. The economic crisis of the pre- 
ceding year also weighed very heavily in the balance against 
the Tories; for however limited may be the sphere of influence 
of the Government, the lower-class voter is always ready to lay 
the blame on it, to make it responsible for a bad harvest and for 
bad times. Not that he is sure that “the other side ” will bring 
good times with them, but the experiment can always be tried. 
This line of argument, which is very familiar to the English 
elector, caused a displacement of many votes in the elections of 
1880. And what finally turned the electoral scale was the al- 
together psn dinary number of new voters who took the 
Liberal side! The Caucus seized on these voters in the large 
towns. There it rendered real service by stimulating their 
enthusiasm and bringing them up in compact battalions to the 
poll. But the electoral arrangements made by the Liberal Whip 
were, as the other side admitted, not less effective; the well- 
known Whip Adam, who had grown grey in office, succeeded 
in bringing the whole strength of moderate Liberalism into the 
field.2 As regards the rural constituencies, the Caucus could 
not even put forward any pretensions, the Birmingham system 
was only just being introduced into the counties, and yet the 
success of the Liberals was not less marked in that quarter; 

they won about fifty seats in the counties. As_for the claim 
that the Caucus had ensured the triumph of anew class of 
candidates by-cmbing the power of the “ well-filled purse,” the 
Caucus did not succee is, to judge by the fact that the 
elections of 1880 rank in the electoral annals of England as 
among those most tainted with corruption. The trial of elec- 
tign petitions even disclosed the fact that certain Associations 


of “hundreds” had been priv corruption: the old 
eee ES —_— 






































1 Cf. for the statistics of the elections Political Parties, their Present Posi- 
tion and Prospects, an argumentative comparison of the figures of the last 
two general elections, by Galloway Rigg, Lond. 1881. 

2 Cf. the speech by Sir H. Stafford Northcote, the illustrious Conservative 
leader, of the 4th October, 1882, at Glasgow. 


FIFTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 207 





political manners and customs were stronger than the fine 
programmes and the professions of faith of the Caucus. The 
powerful contingent contributed by the moderate Liberals 
in the electoral battle to a certain extent again confirmed 
the view of the Whigs, who maintained that the old social 
conditions of England and the old influences had not disap- 
peared. 

Nevertheless the nee and noisy assurance with which 
the power of the Caucus was paraded, did, under the circum- 
stances, make an impression on public opinion and give it a 
greater idea of the importance of the Birmingham system than 
the latter really possessed. The Tories, who were loud in 
attributing their defeat to the Caucus, naively did their best to 
contribute to the system of advertisement with which the Bir- 
mingham group were indefatigably and boldly pushing their 
Organization, and which became one of their great weapons. 
If I refer here to these tactics of the leaders of the Caucus, it 
is not so much to convict them of resorting to the methods of 
puffery employed by modern business men as to draw attention 
to the appearance with the Caucus in English political life of 
a conventional force confronting real, living forces; and it is 
in order to point out the distance which separates the former 
from the latter in this particular case that I have examined the 
various factors which decided the elections of 1880. Present. 
ing all the appearance of real forces, conventional forces act 
like them on the conscience and the will; we admit that they 
have an existence of their own, we take this into account, we~ 
attach importance to it, and shape our conduct accordingly. 
Just as in the financial market bills issued, endorsed, and 
discounted, though possessing no real value, nevertheless dis- 
charge all the functions of exchange, at all events until the 
next settlement or the first crash. 






































GE 


After the accession to power of the Liberal Ministry a good 
many Liberals thought that the work of the Organization was 
at an end, now that the power of the Tory party was destroyed 
and that Parliament contained an enormous Liberal majority 
which faithfully reflected the feeling of the country. This was 


208 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





not the opinion of the leaders of the Caucus, on the contrary 
they believed that its career was only beginning.! Considering 
itself to be the most genuine depository of the wishes and ideas 
of English Liberalism, the Organization held that it was_its 
duty to bring them to Wie Riowinige RETRE oan a 
to aid it in carrying them into effect. The first part of this 
mission, which was undertaken by the central organ of the 
Caucus, the National Liberal Federation, did not present much 
difficulty and was of little use. The legislative reforms rec- 
ommended by the Federation (the extension of the suffrage 
to rural populations, the reform of the land laws, more 
stringent measures against electoral corruption) had long been 
before the Liberal party, and the only practical object of the 
resolutions of the Caucus, voted at intervals with much 
pomp, was to call the attention of the Government to the 
legislative duties incumbent on it, to serve as a reminder to 
it, and at the same time to invest these reforms with popular 
sanction, or, at all events, to convey the impression of this 
by constantly setting in motion the machinery of extra-parlia- 
mentary organization. 

If the Caucus did in fact possess the power and the authority 
to give the Government these hints or this sanction, how could 
it discharge the second duty which it assumed, that is, help the 
Ministry to make these measures go down with the majority ? 
According to the traditional notions of English parliamentary 
government, the co-operation of the Ministry with the majority 
is_based_on mutual confidence, and if this is non-existent, 
no power on earth can create it; there remains only the 
heroic remedy of separation, of an_appeal to the country by 
means of fresh elections. The Caucus held that between the 
Government and its supporters there was room for a third body. 
The parliamentary situation which grew up soon after Mr. Glad- 
stone’s accession to office seemed to it to demand this interven- 
tion. The Liberal majority of 1880, like that of 1868, was not 
homogeneous, and Mr. Gladstone’s legislative proposals soon _ 
created alarm among his moderate followers. To pacify Tre- 
land, he proposed a sweeping reform of the land laws, which, 
to a certain extent, upset the received ideas regarding rights of 












































1 Cf. the speech of Mr. Jesse Collings at the annual meeting of the National 
Liberal Federation, at Liverpool (Times, 26th of October, 1881). 


FIFTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 209 





property and freedom of contract, by empowering the judicial 
authorities to fix a fair rent for the land, in spite of the land- 
lords and of existing contracts. This measure opened a door 
to all kinds of apprehensions on the part of the moderates; it 
seemed to them to create a most dangerous precedent for Eng- 
land itself. On the other hand, the Irish members led by 
Parnell demanded Home Rule and made all progress in Parlia- 
ment well-nigh impossible by systematic obstruction. In these 
circumstances the Caucus considered that it “had an obvious 
duty to discharge” in inviting the local Organizations of the 
party to bring the refractory members, who did not follow the 
Government with sufficient docility, to their senses. The Com- 
mittee of the Federation sent out a circular to all the federated 
Associations, in which it vehemently denounced the lukewarm 
members of the majority. “Within a few weeks of their ac- 
cession to office,” ran the document, “it became apparent that 
among the members of the House of Commons who had secured 
Liberal seats, there were some who were not heartily loyal to 
their leaders. ... During the present session the same dis- 
loyalty has reappeared and has threatened the Government with 
very serious embarrassments. . . . Liberal members recently 
supported an amendment hostile to the Irish Bill of the Gov- 
ernment or intentionally abstained from voting against it.” 
Declaring such a state of things to be intolerable, the Com- 
mittee of the Federation called on the Associations to take the 
measures required by the situation.? 

“This circular produced the effect which the Committee hoped 
to secure,” it soon announced with satisfaction. Telegrams 
or letters from the local Associations poured in on the mem- 
bers ; in more or less courteous terms they were ordered to vote 
for the Irish Bill as it stood, not to move or support amend- 
ments, to co-operate more loyally with the Government. At 
Birmingham, in a formal meeting of the “800,” notice was 
given that all the disloyal Liberal members would be turned 
out of their seats. Some of them accepted the warning and 
obediently fell into line behind the Government. Encouraged 
by this success, the Caucus took the reins and especially the 
whip firmly in hand. As soon as the Ministry met with re- 
sistance or with a display of hostile feeling in either House, 


Circular of the 29th June, 1881. 
VOL. I— P 


210 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





the managers of the central Caucus let loose the Associations, 
urged them to hold meetings, to send monster petitions to 
Parliament, to vote resolutions of protest or indignation, to 
remonstrate with their members or even to give them direct 
orders. ‘ We ask you,” ran the Birmingham circulars some- 
times, “to put yourselves at once in communication with 
your representatives in the House of Commons, strongly 
urging them to be in their places on . . . next and to vote 
for... .” As the legislative measures in regard to which 
this intervention was demanded seemed in themselves worthy 
of support to a large section of opinion, the Associations had 
no difficulty in complying with the proposals which came from 
Birmingham; without exactly wishing to honour or obey the 
Committee of the Federation, they co-operated in a common 
cause. The mode of action recommended to them provoked 
all the fewer scruples because the Associations were chiefly 
composed of militant politicians, and then it invested them 
with a power, with an authority, the exercise of which is 
always welcome. Every little Peddlington Association liked 
to indulge in the idea that the fate of great measures de- 
pended on the energy of its attitude, that the great departments 
of the State had to reckon with it. 

By_force of habit-the co-operation of the local Association 
with Birmingham became, so to speak, automatic; those who 
were jealous of their independence asserted it by paraphras- 
ing the resolutions sent from Birmingham, but they voted them 
all the same, convened public meetings, inveighed against the 
members who were not loyal to Mr. Gladstone, etc. A mere 
telegram from the bigwigs of the Caucus was enough to set the 
Associations in motion throughout the country, and the lion 
growled, screamed, .roared, with pleasure or with anger, as 
occasion required. It will be recollected that when the Fed- 
eration was inaugurated, in 1877, one of its founders, when 
giving a glimpse of the new vistas which this Organization 
opened to the democracy, exclaimed: “It is no longer possible 
for the leaders in London to draw upon the people of the 
country and say two months after date pay to our order in 
the country for an agitation on a particular purpose.” The 
Caucus, in fact, had changed matters; henceforth, the bill . 
was drawn at Birmingham on behalf of the people and 





FIFTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 211 





at two days’ sight instead of two months’! The rapidity 
with which the demonstrations of the caucuses followed the 
parliamentary events that served them as a pretext was alone 
sufficient to prove how little they were due to spontaneous 
movements of opinion. Mr. Chamberlain’s remarks on people 
who “assume, without rhyme or reason, the existence in this 
country of manufactories of political opinion, where zeal and 
unanimity are produced to order”? sounded less sarcastic as 
they came to correspond more and more with the facts. The 
whole process of agitation which was methodically applied 
throughout the country, all the resolutions, circulars, etc., 
emanated from three or four persons in the offices of the Federa- 
tion. It was supposed that Mr. Chamberlain was acting with 
these persons or rather standing behind them, that it was he 
who was pulling the strings: being a member of a government 
which needed the support of public opinion as well as head of 
the extra-parliamentary Organization engaged in setting this 
opinion in motion it was evidently he who touched the springs 
from his place in the Cabinet, for the benefit of the latter. 
Plausible as this conclusion seemed, Mr. Chamberlain pro- 
tested against it; he asserted that since he had joined the 
Ministry, his connection with the Caucus had ceased; that he 
was only a subscriber to the Birmingham Liberal Association; 
that he paid his subscription and that was all.’ 


1 With regard to Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Bill the House of Lords ordered an 
enquiry which was viewed by a good many Liberals as a manifestation of 
hostility against the Ministry. Hardly had the decision of the Upper House 
been taken when the Caucus convened a meeting by telegraph, of delegates of 
Associations throughout the Kingdom for the next day but one; their protest 
against the enquiry was intended to intimidate the House of Lords, and check 
its tendencies towards independence. The delegates flocked to the meeting 
from all quarters, and the Caucus boasted that its summons had been obeyed 
with such alacrity that the Scotch members had not hesitated to do violence 
to their Presbyterian scruples by travelling on Sunday, in order to get to 
the meeting in time. 

2 The Caucus, p. 21. 

8 “©The noble Lord (Randolph Churchill) says Iam the Birmingham caucus. 
Again I am much flattered by this description of my influence and ability, 
but it isa total mistake. Except that I am a subscriber, although I believe 
not one of the largest subscribers... .’’ (Hansard, Vol. CCXCII, p. 573, 
30th October, 1884). 


212 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp Part 





NRE 


Among the many questions by means of which the Caucus 
interfered in the working of the Constitution, none gave it an 
opportunity of appearing in so many aspects, of showing how far- 
reaching and penetrating its intervention could become, as the 
reform of the Procedure of the House of Commons undertaken 
in 1882. Party tactics in Parliament had long since introduced 
habits of obstruction in debate in order to hamper the Govern- 
ment, to impede their work of legislation by starting useless 
and futile discussions which simply wasted the time of the 
House. After the extension of the suffrage, which brought 
into Parliament representatives of a more democratic stamp 
who were anxious to keep themselves before the public, the 
loquacity of the members of the House perceptibly increased 
and contributed in no small measure to the useless prolonga- 
tion of debate. This obstruction, which was sometimes delib- 
erate, sometimes spontaneous, reached its climax when the 
Irish Home Rulers led by Parnell converted it into a system 
and began to practise it with extraordinary zeal and skill. It 
was impossible to stop them, for the old Procedure allowed 
the debate to go on as long as there were orators ready to 
speak and able to command an audience large enough to form 
the quorum required by the rules. If the speaker could only 
secure thirty-nine indulgent listeners, it was impossible to 
silence him. To put down the obstructionists, Mr. Gladstone 
proposed a new Procedure which imposed serious restrictions 
on the unlimited freedom of speech in parliamentary debate, 
the most important being the introduction of the closure. In 
future the majority was to be empowered on certain conditions 
to close the debate when it thought fit. This proposal created 
great excitement not only among the Tory Opposition but in 
the ministerial ranks. Several Liberal members, including 
representatives of the extreme Radical section, held that too 
little discussion was still more fatal than too much, that the 
“right of free speech was more valuable than all the measures 
in the ‘ninisterial portfolio.” Besides, three years had not 
elapsed since Mr. Gladstone himself, under the Beaconsfield 
Ministry which had to put up with a good deal from the ob- 
structive tactics of its opponents, defended obstruction as a 


FIFTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 213 





legitimate weapon for minorities and as a necessary evil. “The 
House of Commons,” he said, “is, and we must hope will con- 
tinue to be, above all and before all a free assembly ; and if 
this is the case, it must submit to pay for its freedom.’ ? 
The obstructionist practices of the Irish in 1880-81, which 
passed all bounds, had made Mr. Gladstone change his mind. 
Nor did the Liberals and the old Radicals refuse to take them 
into account, but they deemed it necessary to surround the 
discretionary power which the Ministry demanded for its 
majority with serious guarantees. 

Hardly had the opposition to the plans of the Ministry 
broken out within the walls of Parliament than the Caucus 
intervened. An imperious circular from Birmingham de- 
nounced it to the federated Associations and urged them to 
declare to all whom it might concern “ in the most energetic form 
and without the slightest delay ” that they expected the Govern- 
ment to be supported by the whole of the Liberal party in this 
conjuncture. The central Caucus pointed out that the closure 
was indispensable for getting the various measures in which the 
Federation was interested passed by the House. These expla- 
nations only confirmed the apprehensions and suspicions as to the 
real significance of the proposed Procedure. Rightly or wrongly, 
people feared that it was to be used more for paralyzing the 
Opposition than for preventing obstruction; that in deference 
to the militant Radicals a whole series of measures would 
be placed before Parliament and that they would be forced 
through the House, by means of the closure. The idea pre- 
vailed that the latter was “ part of a vast scheme of political 
manipulation” set on foot by the Birmingham group, that it 
would be the counterpart of the Caucus in Parliament, and 
that it would enable the former to control the latter and 
transform it into a chamber for registering the decrees of the 
Caucus and of the Press of the party. To dispel these appre- 
hensions, Mr. Gladstone stated in the House that the Liberals 
would never make a party weapon of the closure; that they 
would not use it against the constitutional Opposition. On 
the contrary, rejoined a spokesman of the “young Radicals,” 


1“ The Country and the Government,’’ Nineteenth Century, August, 1879. 
Cf. Mr. Gladstone's speech against the closure delivered in the House of 
Commons on the 27th of February, 1880 (Hansard, Vol. CCL, p. 1593). 


214 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





Mr. Labouchere, if this were so, it would not be worth while 
coming down to the House to vote for the ministerial proposal. 
In “stating the views of the democracy on this point,” Mr. 
Labouchere expressed the hope that the Government would 
consider it its first duty to use the closure in the interests of 
the party. This pleasing contingency was supplemented in 
his mind by the prospect of elections held as frequently as 
possible, in which measures would be submitted to the people, 
and after the people had come to the conclusion that they 
ought to be adopted and that the Ministry representing the 
majority had an imperative mandate to pass them, all dis- 
cussion in the House would be needless, for it would have 
taken place beforehand. By proceeding in this way the Liberal 
party would very soon bring the country into harmony with the 
“ spirit of the age.” + 

If the apprehensions of old Radicals, who thought that the 
closure meant the end of liberty of speech, were as exaggerated 
as the hopes of “young Radicals,’ who considered it the be- 
ginning of the “ Radical democratic Millennium ” in which the 
functions of Parliament would be reduced to those of a regis- 
trar of the people’s decrees, the attitude of the Caucus justified 
the one and encouraged the other. The appeal issued by the 
central Caucus found a hearing, all the Associations complied 
with its request and gave notice to their members to discon- 
tinue all opposition to the ministerial plan, and members 
who had already taken up a position in public against the 
closure eagerly recanted and informed their Associations that 
they would not fail to vote for the Government. When the 
debate on the new Procedure began, a Liberal member (Mar- 
riott) moved an amendment hostile to the principle of clos- 
ure by a simple majority. He was immediately summoned 
to appear before the Liberal Association of the borough which 
he represented in the House to justify his conduct. <A con- 
siderable number of his Liberal colleagues approved of the 
amendment. But the Ministry threatened to dissolve if it 
was carried. If a dissolution took place, members would 
have to run the risk of a new election, with the Caucus lying 
in wait for those who were not loyal to the Ministry. Placed 
between two fires, most of the Liberal members surrendered, 


1 Hansard, Vol. CCLXXIV, pp. 678 seq. 


FIFTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 215 





and the hundred or so of members of the majority who were 
supposed to be in favour of Marriott’s amendment dwindled 
to five on a division, without counting sixteen who took ref- 
uge in abstention. Although the amendment was rejected, 
the Government was still far from having won the day; it was 
only a negative victory. The united forces of the Conserva- 
tives, independent Liberals, and individualist Radicals con- 
tinued to attack the Government plan. Mr. Gladstone made 
some concessions in favour of minorities. But the Caucus 
considered them inopportune; it insisted on the majority 
pure and simple. The Associations spent the parliamentary 
recess in stirring up the country on behalf of the closure; 
they organized meetings, voted resolutions, got up a quantity 
of petitions. Thereupon Mr. Gladstone, believing that pub- 
lie opinion was on his side, withdrew the concessions he had 
made, demanded the closure by a simple majority and carried 
it by the vote of almost the whole of the Liberal members. 
Whether the ministerial measures on behalf of which the 
party Organization exerted itself so actively were excellent 
and necessary or dangerous and useless,—we have not to 
discuss the point in this work, —the fact of the intervention 
of the Caucus and the circumstances under which it took 
place threw a very crude light on the Caucus itself: they 
revealed, so to speak, its nature, its tendencies, its methods 
of action. Conceived with the design of opposing minori- 
ties in the constituencies and having from its birth adopted 
as a maxim that a minority is made to be domineered over if 
not crushed by the majority, the Caucus now interposed be- 
tween the majority and the minority in Parliament and set 
one against the other. Within the ranks of the majority 
hesitation is expressed, several of its members scrutinize their 
opinions, examine their conscience to see if they can follow 
the leaders of the party. “What an idle question,” exclaims 
the Caucus; “as members of the majority you owe obedience 
to its chief; look sharp or I’ll dismiss you as unfaithful ser- 
vants!” A parliamentary party leader is thus converted into 
a party dictator... But how is he to assert his dictatorship ? 


1‘ When Mr. Gladstone and the Government met the House of Commons 
and said it was impossible for them to conduct the business with the present 
antiquated rules . . . there was only one course open to every loyal member 


216 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





The members of the party are not appointed by him; they 
derive their authority from the free choice of the electors. 
“‘No doubt, but I am the electors, the constituency,” rejoins 
the Caucus, “and it is me that you will have to deal with.” 
But after all, cannot the Ministry and the majority, the Goy- 
ernment and the House, come to an understanding by means 
of mutual concessions, which are the essence of all parliamen- 
tary life? “Sheer waste of time,” observes the Caucus; “we 
have already voted resolutions on the point-in our meetings; 
no haggling, it’s a case of Hobson’s choice.” Relations be- 
tween majorities and minorities, of the leader of the party 
with its members, of a member of Parliament with its con- 
stituents, between Parliament and outside opinion —in all 
these the Caucus intervened as an arbiter if not as a master. 


IV 
In interfering on all important_occasions, for the purpose of 


supporting the Government, the Liberal Associations controlled 
by the Birmingham Caucus considered that they were simply 
discharging their duty of serving as the organ of public opinion. 
Devoting themselves to it with such zeal that occasionally 
some of them gave their approval to Government measures of 
which they did not even know the main features, the Associa- 
tions nevertheless kept in the background in cases in which it 
would have been not less important to know the public feel- 
ing of which they were supposed to be the mouthpiece. This 
abstention was most remarkable in connection with the highly 
dramatic incidents of the foreign policy of the Gladstone Min- 
istry. As is well known, this policy was not attended with 
success. Drifting from indecision to hesitation, from weak- 
ness to feebleness, the Cabinet met with one disaster after 
another, in every quarter, in the Transvaal, in Egypt, in the 
Soudan, in Afghanistan. The Liberal Associations and the 
Birmingham Federation, which during the Eastern crisis 
fretted and fumed throughout the country and denounced 
the Turcophil attitude of Disraeli as an insult to civilization 

















of the Liberal party, to sacrifice his personal convictions in order to support 
Mr. Gladstone’? — said Mr. Schnadhorst at a meeting in Brighton, Mr. 
Marriott’s constituency, on the 6th of June, 1882. 


FIFTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 217 





and a disgrace to Christianity, what were they doing now in 
face of all the carnage in which the British armies were 
engaged? They remained silent “in order not to embarrass 
Mr. Gladstone.” When the tragic death of General Gordon, 
who was sent by the Government to Khartoum and afterwards 
left to his fate, extorted a loud cry of indignation from the 
public, some members of Liberal Associations in the north of 
England wished to unburden themselves. They met in the 
city of York and having considered the situation came to the 
conclusion that it was expedient to provoke a general mani- 
festation of public feeling on the affairs of the Soudan. They 
applied to the official organ of the party, to the National Lib- 
eral Federation, asking it to summon a conference of repre- 
sentatives of the federated Associations. The Federation 
refused, “in order not to embarrass Mr. Gladstone.” Those 
who had taken part in the meeting at York threatened to 
leave the Federation. Before this threat the Birmingham 
Caucus gave way and convened a conference in which after 
much discussion a mongrel resolution was voted protesting the 
confidence of the Liberals in Mr. Gladstone and his govern- 
ment, assuring him of their support in the future and regret- 
ting that military operations had been deemed necessary. 
Thus the body ostensibly created for giving regular_and 
free expression to opinion, for making the voice of the country 
heard by its rulers, proved powerless to discharge its function 
in_ circumstances of the most critical kind. _It was fit only to 


stand guard over a party in power. 


























Vv 
The Birmingham Federation was not the only central Organ- 


ization of the Liberal party. Besides that of the Whip with 
his correspondents in the provinces there was another popular 
Organization with Manchester for its headquarters. Among 
the many Associations founded in former days for obtaining 
the extension of the parliamentary franchise (Reform Societies, 
Reform Associations, etc.), one had been formed at Man- 
chester, in 1864, on a national basis, that is to say with numer- 
ous branches in the country, under the name of the Qatiqual 
Reform Union, with the co-operation of several old and leading 


218 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp parr 





members of the famous Anti-Corn Law League. While it never 
attained to the importance of Cobden’s League, the National 
Reform Union had a fairly large share in the reformist agita- 
tion which preceded the Reform Bill of 1867. As soon as 
the extension of the suffrage was carried, the members of the 
National Reform Union were of opinion that its task was at an 
end. Nevertheless it was not formally dissolved and several 
members tried to keep it alive after 1868 by taking up great 
questions. of current politics, such as for instance the Disestab- 
lishment of the Irish Church. But they were stopped by the 
indifference of their old adherents, and the traditional aversion 
to permanent organizations on a national basis. Consequently 
the National Reform Union had become extinct after 1870. 
After the Liberal defeat in the general election of 1874, when 
Birmingham uttered the cry: “Organize! organize!” several 
Lancashire Liberals, uneasy at seeing that “the tree of po- 
litical life appeared to be transplanted to Birmingham,” and 
anxious that Manchester should not be too late in the field, 
thought that the organization of the National Reform Union 
might be made use of and decided to resuscitate it. The 
plan was submitted to_John Bright, whose name had _be- 
come a household word in Lancashire since his exploits at 
the time of the Anti-Corn Law League. He approved the 
idea of the Union, but insisted that it should confine its pro- 
gramme to one point, to a single reform, and recommended 
the reform of the land laws. In this he adhered to the old 
conception of popular Or ganizations formed for the realization 


ofa-distinct and specified object ; pursuit of which 
differing in opinion on other points might unite, resuming com- 


plete liberty of action as soon as the object was attained. A | 
great conference of delegates of several Liberal Associations, 
clubs, and societies held at Manchester sanctioned the reorgan- 
ization of the Union, adopting a programme of four specified 
points, four reforms to be carried.! The new Organization thus 
became_a society of propaganda and agitation in favour of cer- 
tainreforms. Its principal mode of action consisted of distrib- 
uting pamphlets and books, of sending lecturers into different 





























1 The extension of the suffrage to the rural populations; disestablishment 
of the Church of England; reform of the land laws; regulation of the sale of 
liquors by the people. 


FIFTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 219 





parts of the country, of organizing meetings for the discussion 
of questions relating to the programme of the Union. From 
the very commencement of its new existence (from 1876) it 
had the good fortune to secure the services as manager of a 
University man, a gentleman of literary training who gave a 
powerful impulse to the work of the political education of the 
masses undertaken by the Union. 

When, in 1877, the Birmingham group also started a national 
Organization in their town, the National Reform Union declared 
that they were in no way offended, the sphere of action of each 
being distinct although directed towards the same ultimate 
object: “the task of reorganizing the Liberal party is now 
divided into two parts, both tending to the same end; and while 
the Union continues to teach the people what to fight for, the 
Federation will instruct them how to fight. Each is necessary 
to and supplements the other.”! Nevertheless the Union wis 
gradually tempted beyond its programme; the Birmingham 
laurels evidently disturbed its repose, and it began to imitate 
its rival by agitating on a large scale, first of all on the 
Eastern question and then on other problems of the day. The 
programme which confined it within the “four points” grew 
irksome to it and, after the victory of 1880 which the Caucus 
attributed to organization, it exchanged them for the following 
general vague definition: “The Union shall have two objects, 
viz.: 1. the dissemination of political knowledge, and the fur- 
therance of organization, especially in the county constituencies ; 
2. the promotion and agitation of any leading question which 
the Government, or any important section of the party, may 
from time to time place before the nation, and in regard to 
which it may be thought desirable to move and instruct the 
members of the party throughout the country.” The meaning 
of this change in the constitution of the Union was well ex- 
plained by an authorized interpreter: “The Union is so con- 
stituted that it can do any amount of needful work. It can 
organize the party —instruct the party — arouse the party — 
guide the party.”? It was simply the programme of the Cau- 
cus. The Union was very anxious not to be confounded with 


1 Report of the Executive Committee of the National Reform Union for the 
year 1877. 
2 The Northern Pioneer, 3d of March, 1880, ‘‘ The National Reform Union.”’ 


220 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





it and proclaimed that it was not “a caucus in the narrow and 
vulgar sense of the term”; that it had no leanings towards dic- 
tatorship; that it did not wish to turn the members of Parlia- 
ment into delegates. Several of the most influential members 
of the Union however considered that the Organizations “ ought 
to act as political barometers which members could consult and 
by which they might to a certain extent steer their course”; 
that “it was useful that there should be some organization 
which should from time to time, not put the screw on, but use 
a certain amount of influence, or else there might be more 
Marriotts and more Cowens' than there were at that moment”? 
—which in plain English meant that there would be more 
independent members than there were already. Beyond a 
doubt, the Birmingham spirit, was “moving upon the face of 
the waters” of English Liberalism. 
In fact, apart from the work of political scucgnen which it 
rry_on very zeal ; Union was 
falling ifto line behind the Birmingham Federation; it took 
part in all the agitation initiated by the latter; like it ‘sent cir- 
culars to the local Organizations and to the members, enjoining 
the one to convene meetings, to get up petitions, and urging the 
others to be in their place in the House and to vote with the 
main body of the party. It was the same tune which was 
sung at Birmingham, only the voice was a different one; it was 
of no use for the Reform Union to force it; it could never hit 
off the arrogant and comminatory tone of the real Caucus and 
it did not produce the same effect. It was well known that 
there were no important party personages, let alone Cabinet 
Ministers, behind the Union, and that its direct influence on 
the local Associations was more or less confined to the radius 
of Manchester. To sum up, as long as it was engaged in dif- 
fusing ideas throughout the country by means of_its lecturers 
and its publications, the Union occupied the position of well- 
behaved women who are not talked about, and when it tried 






































1 Messrs. Marriott and Cowen, the one a moderate Liberal, the other an 
advanced Radical, were the members of the House of Commons who had 
declared with energy against the closure by a simple majority proposed by 
the Gladstone Ministry. 

2Chairman’s speech at the annual meeting of 1883. Cf. also the other 
speeches, especially those of Russell, Agnew, and Richards (Manchester Exam- 
iner, 24th of January, 1883). 


FIFTH CHAP. } THE CAUCUS IN POWER 221 





to make a noise th the_ Caucus shouted twenty times as loud and 
made more impression on the gallery. It was therefore natu- 
ral that the Reform Union, dar from attaining the popularity 
of the Birmingham Federation and its influence in the manage- 
ment of the party, was if anything effaced by it. 

This effacement extended also to the principles on which 
the Reform Union had been founded, and it is in this point that 
lies the interest which its history possesses for us in the move- 
ment of party organization, Having adopted the realization 
of one or more well-defined legislative measures as its object, 
and the methodical enlightenment of public opinion thereon as 
its means of attaining that object, the Reform Union presented 
as it were the counter-current of the tendencies embodied in 
the Caucus. On the one side was the conception of the old 
Liberalism and Radicalism with its firm belief that ideas and 
principles constituted the rallying-point in party strife; that 
all the combatants ought to know beforehand what they were 
going to fight for and when they would lay down their arms; 
and that the real struggle consisted in instilling these ideas 
into unconverted minds, in achieving the conquest, slow and 
laborious perhaps, but all the more durable, of convictions, of 
consciences. The tendency of the new method was to confine 
opinion for good and all within fixed lhmits under a general 
and unchangeable banner; to impart strength to it by the per- 
manence of the organization and the unlimited duration of the 
term of enlistment; to bring would-be stragglers into line by 
pressure from the whole body; to form an army which would 
follow its leaders in measured step, subject to the formality of 
preliminary ratification of the appointment of these leaders by 
popular choice; to teach this army only to fight, to charge the 
enemy at the first signal, on the general conviction that it is 
fighting and will always fight for a glorious cause whoever 
is or may be the enemy. The effacement of the National 
Reform Union behind the Caucus, the attempts which it made 
to adapt itself to the methods and procedure of the Caucus, 
to walk in its footsteps, meant that the counter-current which 
it represented in its early days was being more and more 
driven out of the political life of England and was making 
way for the new stream issuing from the rock of Birming- 
ham. 

















222 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





Highly instructive proof of this was also supplied by an- 
other Organization which, amid different social conditions, 
attempted to establish Liberalism on the basis of principles 
similar to those on which the 2 Ree efor m Cian _took 
its stand. This was the Zonda: i 
created after the elections of 1880 ae London and the neigh: 
bouring counties. The southern counties were and still are 
one of the most backward parts of England. An agricult- 
ural region, the principal abode of large landed proprietors, 
the south remained to a certain extent untouched by the social 
revolution brought about by the rise of industry, which derived 
all its impetus from the north. The electoral qualification be- 
ing still pretty high in the counties, up to 1885, the great mass 
of the rural population was not only deprived of the suffrage 
but also destitute of all political culture. The farmers in these 
parts followed the lead of the landowners more submissively 
than elsewhere, and the latter were bound to the Conservative 
party by tradition and to some extent by their interests. Con- 
sequently if the Liberal candidates ventured into these coun- 
ties (known as the Home Counties), they were generally de- 
feated. In the general election of 1880 of the 28 members 
returned for these counties only one was a Liberal, and he 
owed his seat to the minority clause of the Reform Bill of 
1867. London, on the contrary, had a Liberal past. But in 
proportion as the metropolis enlarged its area with the alarm- 
ing rapidity familiar to us, it lost its sense of individuality, its 
esprit de corps; indifference to the public welfare took per- 
manent root, aided by the growth of comfort which swells the 
ranks of materialism; and the immense agglomeration of Lon- 
don slipped away more and more from Liberalism. Caucuses 
were no doubt established in most of the metropolitan boroughs, 
but they did not much advance the cause of the Liberal party. 
In the neighbouring counties the organization was a good deal 
weaker, although there were here and there Associations with 
a more or less permanent organization, but practically their 
operations were reduced to those of the committees in the old 
days, which were formed on the eve of the elections and dis- 
solved soon afterwards. Social influences were, as in the past, 
the great organizing power in these districts. The Birming- 
ham Federation which, especially in its early days, worked 





FIFTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 223 





chiefly the urban agglomerations, had not included the Home 
Counties in its sphere of action; it reached them indirectly by 
the Liberal oases which were scattered over them, without de- 
voting itself specially to their organization, a somewhat thank- 
less task owing to the social condition of the country. The 
London and Counties Liberal Union was intended to fill this gap 
by supplying a great local Organization which would bring all 
its strength to bear on this part of England. 

But for the founders of this Union the gap did not consist 
of “bad organization,” but in the fact that the population was 
ignorant, imprisoned within a narrow horizon, without capacity 
for public hfe. To bring light into this darkness, to open the 
mind of the rural population, to awaken in it an interest in 
the public welfare, became the great object of the Union from 
the very beginning. Organization was on the second plane, and 
formed a subsidiary means of action. The Union endeavoured 
to drag the existing Associations from their lethargy and to 
bring about the formation of new ones, but it wished them 
to have a spontaneous life of their own. It repelled interfer- 
ence in the affairs of the local Associations with energy and 
almost with indignation.’ Its notion was that it was to be not 
the master but the servant of the local Organizations by offer- 
ing them the advantages of concentrated action for obtaining 
lecturers, publications at reduced rates, information and advice, 
on legal points connected with electoral registration matters so 
full of intricacy in England, etc. Lectures on political and 
historical topics and the distribution of small publications — 
pamphlets and leaflets— became the great weapons of the 
Union. The tone in which its representatives as well as those 
of the local Associations addressed the masses often contrasted 
with the habits of violent controversy and of abuse of oppo- 
nents by which the Caucus was distinguished? Undertaking 


1 “Interference was not in the least degree contemplated. They held it to 
be nothing less than impertinence to attempt to enter into any district where 
their co-operation would not be thoroughly welcome ’’ — said the Chairman at 
the opening meeting. 

2 At one of the general conferences in which the delegates of the local 
Associations exchanged their views and impressions, one of them character- 
ized the mode of action adopted in his locality as follows: ‘‘ We have aimed, 
not at stirring up party strife and ill-feeling among neighbours by violent 
attacks upon our political opponents, but rather at setting forth the positive 


224 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





the political education of the masses, the Union held that the 
business of its own staff in their turn was to make a constant 
study of the political questions which came or were shortly 
about to come before public opinion, and to do so in a spirit 
absolutely free from all party preoccupations. A result was 
the formation in London, which was the seat of the Union, of 
a sort of club for mutual improvement, in which the members 
read papers on problems of legislation or politics which they 
had investigated, followed by a discussion intended solely to 
enlighten the audience and not toend inavote. Distinguished 
men who had already or have since made themselves a name in 
politics or literature took a very active part in these meetings.’ 
The idea had also been started of making these discussions at 
head-quarters find an echo in the other localities: the represen- 
tatives of the local Associations who attended the meetings in 
London were in their turn to reopen discussion in the local 
meetings on the topics debated, inviting to the conferences 
not only members of the Association but neutrals and Tories, 
so that every one could take sides on the question after due 
reflection and not before it. 

The Union occasionally, although in a discreet fashion, joined 
in the agitation promoted by Birmingham (for instance, that in 
favour of the extension of the franchise to the rural popula- 
tion). One clause in its statutes, which brought it nearer to the 
programme of the Caucus, imposed on it the very general obli- 
gation of “securing the adoption of Liberal principles in the 
government of the country.” But in practice the Union was 
very anxious not to preserve a vague and ambiguous attitude, 
and being preoccupied with its “chief duty of stimulating and 
promoting political education and organization,” it was con- 
vinced “that this end would be most effectually attained by 
the advocacy of some definite objects as the immediate goal of 
their efforts.” It adopted two: the reform of local self-govern- 
ment and that of the land laws, and made them a platform at 


advantages which flow from Liberal government, and the substantial gains 
to be hoped for from these changes for which the country is now ripe ”’ 
(London and Counties Liberal Union, Report of the Conference of officers 
of Liberal Associations, 7 Nov. 1882, p. 22). 

1 For instance, H. Arnold-Forster, Geo. Brodrick, James Bryce, Sydney 
Buxton, W. S. Caine, Arthur Cohen, Q.C., A. V. Dicey, Sir John Lubbock, 
H. 8. Tremenheere, and others. 


FIFTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 225 





the general election of 1885. These elections were the first 
and also the last in which the Union took part. Its work and 
its methods of action were not properly appreciated. It was 
badly supported and always short of funds; the magnates of 
the party opened their purses only just on the eve of the elec- 
tions, not understanding that a long preparation of the public 
mind is required to win votes by honest means. In vain did 
the Union proclaim that “ political education is the life-blood 
of Liberalism.” Such an ungrateful soil as that of the south- 
ern rural counties demanded not only a special kind of eulti- 
vation, but also the patient work of years before it could yield 
acrop. Party spirit, engrossed in the present and never bestow- 
ing athought on the future, was incapable of comprehending 
this simple truth, and when the general election of 1885, in 
which the Union took part for the first time, resulted unfavour- 
ably for the Liberals within its sphere of operations, the ver- 
dict was that the Union had not gone the right way to work; 
it was dissolved and not long after the Home Counties were 
annexed to the Caucus so that the latter might bring its superior 
methods to bear on them.* 

Thus the counter-currents represented by the other central 
Organizations receded before that identified with the Birming- 
ham Federation. The latter soon drove into the background or 
took in tow all its rivals. The London and Counties Union in 
the south was still dragging out its existence and the National 
Reform Union in the north continuing its own, as it was des- 
tined to do for years to come, when the Birmingham Feder- 
ation came to the front. Claiming to be the direct depository 
of the will of the people and the regular mouthpiece and 
supporter of the Ministry, it identified itself officially with 
the Liberal party and Government. Always occupying the 
stage of extra-parliamentary political life, it assumed the air 
of being the chief actor. The signal for all agitation in the 
country emanated from it; every great question before the 
public served it as a pretext for manifestations; to every Gov- 

1 The following answer was given to a question put to a member of the 
staff of the National Liberal Federation as to the causes of the want of suc- 
cess of the London and Counties Union: ‘‘ Perhaps it may be ascribed to the 
fact that the limits of its work were too confined, and to an overwhelming 


desire not to have the slightest appearance of interference with the local 
Associations.”’ 


VOL. I—@Q 


226 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





ernment measure it affixed its imprimatur. Its resolutions 
were proclaimed wrbi et urbi in general meetings of delegates, 
either periodical or extraordinary, which were intended to 
represent, as it were, the Grand Assizes of English Liberal- 
ism. The Federation held them in different towns in turn. 
Great as the stir made by them might be, the significance of 
these meetings was not a real one, they lacked spontaneity. 
Everything was cut and dried by the Birmingham group, the 
resolutions to be voted, the orators who were to speak. It was 
more of a grand orchestral performance than a gathering of 
representatives of opinion assembled for the purpose of throw- 
ing light upon or putting forward their views on the questions 
of the day or their aspirations. The Birmingham set could not 
brook contradiction or divergence of views. Those delegates 
who chanced to become the mouthpiece of it were looked on as 
wet blankets. They were greeted in the lobbies with ironical 
remarks: “How do you do, you have brought with you an 
amendment to the resolutions, have you not?” Sometimes 
these delegates happened to be the representatives of very 
large towns which had a history. Intoxicated with their suc- 
cess, the Birmingham leaders were not careful to avoid wound- 
ing susceptibilities. The National Liberal Federation aspired 
not only to influence in the party but to power. 








SIXTH CHAPTER 
THE CAUCUS IN POWER (continued ) 
I 


AFTER having followed the movements of the Federation on 
the political stage, let us transport ourselves for a brief space 
amid the local Associations. Since we became acquainted with 
them at the time of their first appearance under Disraeli’s gov- 
ernment, we have seen them on more than one occasion in the 
train of the central Caucus, contributing to its impressiveness 
by their numbers and swelling the noise which it made. Fol- 


lowing the lead of Birmingham, they tried their hand at_politics 
on_a large scare, and interfered demonstratively in the work of 
Parliament. But they could only carry out their will in_Par- 
liament_tl through their members. The question, therefore, of 
the relations between the member. and the party Association 
soon assumed a prominent position as that of the relations 
between the Association and parliamentary candidates had pre- 
viously done. The solution which the Caucus gave to the new 
problem was still more decisive. It did not consider the gen- 
eral authority with which it had invested the member by the 


fact of nominating him as sufficient; it held that in the actual 


discharge of his duties he was boun to follow th 
t ation on ev casion. We have already 
seen the caucuses, in the agitations got up by Birmingham, 


their members communication c- 
tions to vote in such and such a way, to support this and 
oppose that.. Ag in the case of those standing for Parliament, 
most_of the members preferred, to avoid making a fuss, 
not to insist on the question of principle raised _by this atti- 
tude of the caucuses. Some hastened with exemplary docility 
to assure their Caucus that they were quite ready to vote in 
the manner required; others complied in silence, whether they 
yielded to the demands of the Caucus or that these demands 

227 


























228 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp parr 





coincided with their own convictions. The division lists in the 
House showed few Liberal votes recorded in opposition to the 
policy of the Caucus, and when such a thing took place it sel- 
dom forgave the members who assumed this independent 
attitude. It called on them imperiously for explanations, or 
still more often, without having heard them, the Association 
passed a vote censuring or branding the delinquent. The in- 
dependent members adhered firmly to their attitude, and the 
Caucus persisted in its own while continuing to “brand” the 
recalcitrants. In some cases these conflicts became extremely 
acute and produced an extraordinary sensation. This time 
again, that is to say in the relations between members and the 
party Organization just as in regard to the latter’s dealings 
with the candidates, it was reserved for W. E. Forster to be 
in the front rank of those who asserted their independence as 
against the Caucus. 

After the period of his conflict with the “400” of Bradford 
on the subject of Article 15, Forster once more had an opportu- 
nity of being one of the official leaders of Liberalism; with the 
return of Mr. Gladstone to power, he entered the Cabinet as 
Chief Secretary for Ireland. But two years afterwards, in 
1882, disapproving the new policy adopted with regard to the 
Irish Home Rulers, he left the Ministry. This act of indepen- 
dence isolated him in his own party, and although as a rule he 
freely gave it his support he became a “suspect.” Thereupon 
the Bradford Caucus laid hands on him as an executioner does 
on a man under sentence of death. It indulged in the most 
violent attacks on Forster, abused him at gatherings and meet- 
ings, and branded him with resolution after resolution, at one 
time with regard to his attitude on a specified question, at 
another with reference to an expression which he had used in 
speaking of the policy of the leader of the party, or again on ac- 
count of “his conduct during the present session, not only for 
withholding his support from the Government in the recent vote 
of censure, but in making speeches on more than one occasion 
which could only have the effect of damaging their position 
and strengthening the hands of the opposition.” Forster re- 
mained calm and unmoved in face of the storm, while not 
ceasing to assert the right of a member to speak and vote in 
accordance with his conscience. Between Forster and the 


SIXTH CHAP. } THE CAUCUS IN POWER 229 





Bradford Caucus it was not even, properly speaking, a question 
of divergence of views; forif Forster had ideas on the question 
of the day, the Caucus had none. “But the committee may tell 
me,” remarked Forster to the 400, “your opinion on this Egyp- 
tian question is not ours, in this matter you do not represent 
us, and of this fact we must inform the electors of Bradford 
and of the country. Certainly this would be both their right 
and their duty, but I must venture most respectfully to state 
that the committee have not given me their opinion.”! What 
was demanded from him was not a particular policy, but to abide 
by that which the leader of the party would eventually adopt. 
Forster’s crime, therefore, was that he would not follow him 
blindly. Those electors of Bradford who were devoted to Fors- 
ter were quite convinced that it was the central Caucus which 
was pulling the strings throughout the whole of this affair. 
Apart from the old accounts which the Birmingham group had 
to settle with the author of the Education Act of 1870, Mr. 
Chamberlain, who had entered the Gladstone Cabinet, was sup- 
posed to have conceived an aversion for his moderate colleague 
who was curbing the Radical tendencies of the inspirer of the 
Caucus. Consequently Forster’s friends at Bradford imagined 
that the whole campaign against him was planned at Birming- 
ham, and they saw the hand of the central Caucus every where. 
Its hand was not everywhere, but it was a fact that Birming- 
ham inspired and approved the campaign of the Bradford Cau- 
cus, and that the latter to a great extent derived its power 
of defying independent opinion from this support of the 
Organization. 

When, in pursuance of the Redistribution of Seats of 1884- 
1885, the borough of Bradford was divided into three divisions, 
the local Caucus was converted into three associations on the 
same pattern, but this did not put an end to the opposition to 
Forster. On the eve of parting from his constituents of the 
whole borough, whom he had represented in Parliament for 
more than a quarter of a century, Forster wished to give them 
an account of his stewardship. The Caucus did all in its power 
to prevent him from meeting his electors facé to face.? How- 


1 Times, 22d May, 1884. 
2 Cf. the Times, 16th November, 1885, ‘‘ Political Organizations ’’: Leeds and 
Bradford, and T. W. Reid, II, 516. 


230 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





ever the meeting took place and Forster concluded his speech 
with the following words, the last which he uttered in public: 
“ T thank you for this more than for anything else, — that for the 
long time I have been your member, the time that I have taken 
part in the government of the nation or in the deliberations of 
Parliament, I have been not your mere delegate, not your mere 
mouthpiece; but your representative, doing what I thought to 
be right; and upon no other condition will I serve you in the 
future.” ’ The passionate cries of approval, the enthusiasm of 
the enormous crowd which filled the building, proved that in the 
heart of the people there was plenty of room for admiration of 
and respect for political uprightness and honesty, for men who, 
instead of flattering the masses, tell them the truth. But it 
soon appeared that the people were not complete masters of 
their actions. Forster stood for one of the three new divisions. 
The Caucus set to work to defeat him, and its influence proved 
too great to be disregarded. Stricken with a mortal disease, 
Forster left his election in the hands of friends. The latter, 
being anxious to spare him the bitterness of a last struggle, 
opened negotiations with the Caucus and arrived at a compro- 
mise which put a stop to hostilities. Beyond a doubt they 
would have soon broken out again if Forster’s death had not 
supervened a few months later and terminated the contest; for, 
in spite of the weaknesses which have been referred to above, 
Forster was, as Mr. Gladstone said in the funeral oration on his 
old colleague delivered in the House of Commons, “a man 
upon whom there could be no doubt that Nature had laid her 
hands for the purpose of forming a thoroughly genuine and in- 
dependent character.’’? 


II 


But, after all, was the war which the Bradford Caucus had 
waged for years against Forster, really a war on the inde- 
pendence of members ? Was it not more a contest of opinions, 
Forster being a moderate, almost a Whig, whereas the Caucus 
represented the advanced Radicalism which was daily gaining 


1T. W. Reid, [bid. 
2 Sitting of the House of Commons of the 6th April, 1886 (Hansard, Vol. 
CCCIV, p. 976). 


SIXTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 231 





ground in the country? If there had been a Radical in Fors- 
ter’s place would there have been any pretext or cause for 
opposition ? 

A peremptory answer was returned to these questions at New- 
castle-on-Tyne, where the local Caucus was confronted by a 
Radical, a real Radical, if ever there was one, — Joseph Cowen. 

Devoted, body and soul, to the cause of the people from his 
youth upwards, he laboured incessantly for their moral and 
material elevation, lavishing on them the resources of his high 
culture acquired by severe study and by meditation, of his en- 
ergy, of his ardent democratic faith, and also of his large fort- 
une. Full of solicitude for the workmen of the factories owned 
by him, Cowen extended it to the whole hardworking popula- 
tion of the Tyne district; introduced co-operative societies 
among them; organized libraries, classes, lectures; turned lect- 
urer, schoolmaster, secretary himself; took part in every social 
movement tending to the welfare of the people. An intimate 
friend of several Chartist leaders, he resumed the political 
propaganda in the north by his speeches and his writings, in 
the Palmerston days; that is to say, at a juncture when, in 
consequence of the defeat of Chartism and the success of a 
prosperous middle-class, the political pulse had almost ceased 
to beat in the nation. Assisted by a group of friends recruited 
chiefly from among intelligent workmen, Cowen carried his 
propaganda into every little town and village of the district, 
appealing to workmen in the towns, to the labourers in the 
fields, and to the toilers underground, not in order to cry up re- 
volt to them, but to enlighten their minds, to awaken the human 
being in them, and to prepare them for civic life. An ardent 
lover of liberty, Cowen longed for and laboured for its triumph 
in other countries besides his own. When still a young man, he 
formed a connection with Mazzini and through him with other 
leaders of the European Revolution who had taken refuge in 
England after the victory of reaction in 1848 and the coup d’ Etat 
of the 2d of December. Kossuth, Louis-Blane, Ledru-Rollin, 
Pierre Leroux, Alexander Herzen, and many others penetrated 
into the far north to visit the young English democrat whose 
overflowing enthusiasm and invincible faith consoled their 
aching hearts. He also assisted them actively to continue the 
struggle. Bred in the school of the old masters of rationalist 


232 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





individualism, from Godwin and Paine onwards, and inspired 
by their descendants, the “ Philosophic Radicals,” Cowen had 
the passion for individual liberty in the highest degree, with- 
out, however, falling into the narrow views of the Manchester 
school,’ and a veneration for “principles” without being in- 
fected with doctrinaire fanaticism.? He was profoundly con- 
vinced that spontaneous individual effort, ensuring independ- 
ence of thought and energy in action, was the sole basis of 
really strong communities, while principles supplied ideas 
which alone gave a meaning to the existence of communities, 
and provided a conductor and a proper aim for the policy of 
States. He had a horror of the opportunism which seeks 
inspiration in the interest of the moment, in the passions or 
the follies of the day, in the prejudice in vogue, or in the com- 
plicity of hatred, animosity, or greed. “Every man,” he said, 
“must act according to his convictions. They are his safest 
and ought to be his only guide. Upon matters of detail he 
may subordinate his opinion to his associates. The majority 
in such cases may guide him, but upon questions of principle 
he must stand firm even if he be as one against one thousand.” 
“The working classes have achieved their personal independ- 
ence, they must now,” said Cowen to them, “ devote themselves 
to their intellectual emancipation; let them think for themselves 
and not be put in swaddling-clothes or leading-strings by crafty 
advisers.” * Democrat to the backbone, he was for a “robust, 
high-spirited, magnanimous Democracy,—the Democracy of 
Pericles, not of Cleon.” * 

After a quarter of a century of work on the banks of the 
Tyne, Cowen was asked to represent Newcastle in Parliament, 
and he entered the House in 1874. There he soon proved one 


1‘ Tam not and never was an adherent of what is popularly known as the 
Manchester school... .’? (Speech of the 31st January, 1880, at Newcastle, 
Life and Speeches of Joseph Cowen, edited by E. R. Jones, Lond., 1885, p. 
153.) ‘‘I am a free-trader and always have been. I have no superstitious 
regard for the principles of political economy, however. .. .’’ (Speech of 
the 24th November, 1885, at Newcastle, Speeches at the General Election 1885, 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1885, p. 203.) 

2“ Tn the application of a principle there may be opportunity and necessity 
for concession. Legislation is a practical science, and it is modified by tra- 
ditions, customs, and institutions’ (Speech of the 3d January, 1881, at New- 
castle, Life and Speeches, p. 180). * 

3 Life and Speeches. 4 Life and Speeches, 279. 


SIXTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 233 





of the greatest orators that contemporary England has pro- 
duced. But at the same time he showed himself incapable of 
following the lead of a party or of any one whatever. Some- 
times he opposed the Disraeli Ministry with the utmost vigour, 
sometimes he gave it the support of his great abilities; an 
advanced Radical,:he occasionally came to the rescue of the 
Tories, especially in the Eastern question in which the Liberals 
seemed to him to be influenced by party considerations, by the 
wish to embarrass the Tory government, when they vented 
their rage against Turkey and encouraged the autocracy of 
Russia, which, in his eyes, was as wretched a government as 
that of Constantinople. When the Conservatives seemed to 
him in the wrong, he disagreed with them; when he thought 
they were in the right path, he agreed’ with them. That right 
should always be on one side of the House and wrong always 
on the other appeared to him a false and often pernicious con- 
vention.. After the fall of the Tories he observed the same 
independent attitude with regard to the Liberal government; 
he gave it his support, but not on all occasions. Whenever he 
thought it infringed the principles of Liberalism, Cowen had 
no hesitation in opposing it. The policy of coercion adopted 
by Mr. Gladstone towards Ireland found in him an unrelenting 
opponent. He had the whole Liberal party against him, but 
he none the less continued to defend the cause of Ireland. He 
opposed the restriction of free speech in Parliament, and pre- 
dicted that the undeniable evil of obstruction would be in no 
way prevented by it. Sympathizing with the movement of 
national regeneration attempted in Egypt by Arabi Pasha on the 
basis of Egypt for the Egyptians, Cowen feared that the inter- 
ference of a European power would lead to bloodshed, to much 
bloodshed. He also warned the Government that if the Eng- 
lish, after having entered the land of the Pharaohs, hesitated 
to defend it against the Mahdi, they would expose themselves 
and the country to disaster. Most of the Liberal members, 
unlike Cowen, thinking themselves bound to silence and dis- 
cipline by party ties, followed their leader. Lines of conduct 
of the most opposite character were approved with docility in 
accordance with the orders of the day. And having sowed 
the wind, they reaped the whirlwind. “ Principles,” which are 
so contemptible in the eyes of “ practical politicians,” were in 


234 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





the right as against them and the “ party interests” which the 
latter claim to serve. But as arule parties leave the task of 
gleaning the lessons conveyed to them by events to history ; 
no one opposed to them is ever right. Cowen was; conse- 
quently he was in the wrong. 

The position of an independent member in the House of 
Commons had for some time past become a delicate one, since 
the ranks had closed up on both sides after the appearance of 
the masses on the political stage, in 1868. Two great armies 
reformed into line with two powerful leaders, Gladstone and 
Disraeli, the contest between whom assumed the character of 
a duel, of an epic struggle. But if a man of great force of 
character were to maintain an independent position in Parlia- 
ment, would it not be possible for him to hold his own by 
relying on the confidence of his fellow-citizens merited by a 
genuine devotion to the popular cause, by leaning on the 
very masses who supply the fighting material of politics, by 
appealing, so to speak, from the weakness of the democracy 
to its strength ? Cowen’s attitude raised this question. The 
Caucus undertook to answer it. The reply was in the negative. 


TEE 


The branch of the Caucus established at Newcastle, as in 
other towns, began a merciless opposition to Cowen. The 
latter had not welcomed the introduction of the Caucus, which 
had no distinctive creed or recognized principles, but which 
required simply “adhesion to the Organization,” and he took 
no notice of the new institution. The Caucus on its side, 
having set up from the outset as the defender of Liberal 
orthodoxy, was offended with Cowen’s attitude in the Eastern 
crisis. Nevertheless, being aware of his immense influence in 
the Tyne country, it did not venture to oppose him at the 
general election of 1880, but tried to make him accept his seat 
from them, as was the wont of the “representative Organiza- 
tion.” Cowen did not fall in with this, and explained that 
as a divergence of views had broken out between himself and 
the “organized Liberals,” he was anxious to respect their opin- 
ions by coming before the electors on his own responsibility. 
When in the new Parliament Cowen showed that he meant 


SIXTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 235 





to preserve his independence under the Liberal government as 
he had done under Disraeli’s, the rage which had been smoul- 
dering in the breasts of the Caucus leaders at Newcastle, burst 
forth. They almost got it into their heads that Cowen’s sole 
preoccupation was to create obstacles for the Liberal govern- 
ment. For what other explanation is there of his conduct? He 
defends these Irish, these Home Rulers who prevent Mr. Glad- 
stone from governing. Not only does he speak, but he even 
occasionally votes against the Ministry. It is all very well 
his being out of sympathy with the aristocratic composition 
of the House of Lords and regretting its reactionary conduct, 
but he none the less maintains that it is acting on its rights, 
although with little wisdom, and he censures the violent lan- 
guage and the threats directed against it in this respect. Was 
this the attitude of a Liberal? Certainly not. It was not 
official Liberalism. And thereupon the Newcastle Caucus 
set itself up as a sort of Holy Inquisition with the mission of 
watching every word that fell from Cowen and examining into 
its motives. The most unfriendly construction for him was 
invariably placed upon them before the electors. The old 
inhabitants of Newcastle, who had witnessed his whole life 
and were almost sharers in his labours, knew the rights of the 
matter, but the rising generation or the new-comers, who knew 
nothing of Cowen’s past, listened more readily to the insinua- 
tions of the Caucus. 

The prestige attaching to Cowen’s personality remaining 
considerable in spite of this, the Caucus thought that as a new 
love drives out an old one, another eminent man introduced 
into the political life of Newcastle might be the means of oust- 
ing Cowen. And when one of the two parliamentary seats as- 
signed to the borough became vacant in 1882 owing to the resig- 
nation of the sitting member, the Caucus offered it to Mr. John 
Morley. A brilliant writer, an eminent thinker, a journalist 
of talent and knowledge, well versed in political questions, a 
man of lofty character, Mr. Morley undoubtedly was a member 
of a stamp which is unfortunately too rare in the English Par- 
lament as well as in all Parliaments. But being introduced 
to Newcastle by the Caucus, he was unlucky enough to serve 
as a screen for its manceuvres. The very manner of his nom- 
ination seemed rather suspicious to independent opinion and 


236 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





had the appearance of being directed against it. In the morn- 
ing the telegram announcing the, to the public at all events, 
unexpected resignation of Mr. Cowen’s colleague arrived at 
Newcastle; in the evening Mr. Morley, who had been sum- 
moned from London by telegraph, was on the spot, and all 
the formal proceedings for the selection of a candidate — con- 
sideration of his claims by the executive committee, discussion 
of its report in the meeting of the “hundreds,” and finally 
the introduction of the candidate to a special meeting of elec- 
tors — was got through by the next day. For the candidature 
of a stranger, even a distinguished one, in a place where local 
feeling is highly developed, and where there were possible can- 
didates who were well-known and respected in the neighbour- 
hood, this rapid action was certainly extraordinary. The 
desired effect of the fait accompli, intended to discourage 
any other serious candidature, was produced, and the candidate 
of the Caucus was elected. Encouraged by this success, the 
Caucus became still more intolerant and intractable with re- 
gard to its grievances against the too independent member. 
These grievances were many: Mr. Cowen was not loyal to 
the Liberal party; he would not admit the authority of the 
Organization representing local Liberalism in its relations with 
the electors; he paid no attention to it in his votes in the House; 
and lastly he repelled all interference of the Caucus in the 
policy of the newspaper which he published at Newcastle 
(Newcastle Chronicle). The Caucus held that in its capacity 
of official representative of local Liberalism it ought to con- 
trol all the political utterances of the Liberal members of the 
locality, whether on the platform or in the Press. Subse- 
quently, at the time of the enquiries made by the author of this 
work, the leaders of the Caucus observed not without bitter- 
ness: ‘Why, Mr. Morley assured us that he was responsible 
to us for what appeared in his newspaper, and he (Cowen) de- 
clined all responsibility.” The Newcastle Chronicle, a pioneer 
of English democracy (it had existed for more than a century) 
had never been the servant of any party, and Cowen took care 
to keep up the tradition. To compete with him in this lne as 
well, the Newcastle Caucus started an orthodox paper with a 
subsidy from the headquarters of the party. In its war against 
Cowen the Caucus made extensive use of public meetings, of 


SIXTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 237 





gatherings of the “hundred,” in which the charges just re- 
ferred to were constantly brought against him, and in which 
resolutions of censure, of indignation, of denunciation, were 
invariably voted. At the same time they secretly worked on 
the electors by means of the old but always successful device, 
that if you only throw enough mud, some of it is sure to stick. 
Cowen was in league with the Tories—this was the awful 
truth revealed to the electors who in the ingenuousness of 
their hearts had placed their confidence in a traitor. Cowen 
paid no heed to the attacks of the Caucus and did not even 
condescend to reply to them as did Forster for instance, who 
met the Liberal Association of Bradford with courteous expla- 
nations “due to so important a section of the constituency.” 
At the general election of 1885 the Caucus made a final effort 
against Cowen while affecting a complete neutrality with regard 
tohim. The minions of the Caucus scoured the district, appeal- 
ing to every susceptibility, to every prejudice, to every malig- 
nant feeling. “ What,’ they said to the electors, “you are 
going to vote for this sworn friend of the Irish, of the Papists, 
the enemies of our Protestant religion and of the English 
race!” The Catholics were addressed in another fashion: 
“ Just consider what this man is, a friend of Garibaldi,! of 
the tormentor of the Pope.” “He assumes,” they went on, “the 
attitude of an independent politician who only follows his con- 
victions and listens to the voice of his conscience, but it is only 
a mask for hiding his disloyalty to Liberalism.” At the elec- 
tion meetings they turned up with scores of questions prepared 
beforehand and requested Mr. Cowen to answer them on the 
spot, in the hope that in the shower of questions he would 
lose his balance and commit himself. He replied with calm- 
ness and dignity. In a series of admirable speeches,’ full of 
facts and ideas, he initiated his audiences, as in fact he always 
did, into the political questions which had come before Parlia- 
ment. While pointing out the solution which he thought they 
required and for which he had voted, he left the electors to de- 


1 Cowen had been a friend of Garibaldi who paid him a visit at New- 
castle and he gave the Italian patriot much help in his efforts on behalf of 
Italian unity. 

2 They have been published in book form: Speeches delivered by Joseph 
Cowen as Candidate for Newcastle-upon-Tyne at the General Election 18865, 
Newceastle-on-Tyne, 1885. 


238 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





cide on his conduct. Avoiding all controversy, all recrimination 
against the Newcastle Caucus, he touched on all the questions 
of principle which were at stake in the conflict with the eleva- 
tion of views, the dignified language, and the manly frankness 
which distinguished him, — questions of the relations between 
a member and his constituents, of party ties, of political organ- 
izations. Referring to his own particular case, he said: “I will 
in a sentence or two summarize my grounds of difference. I 
put first Liberal principles. They put first the Liberal party. 
I care most for measures. They care more for men. In this 
lies all the quarrel. . . . Party is simply a_means to an end. 
It is not the end. Leaders are all very well in their place, but 
none of them are infallible, and I will surrender_my judgment 
in. matters 0 of principle to no man, however powerful, and to 
no body of men, however numerous.” ! 

This bold attitude, if it did not convert the masses roused 
to fanaticism by the Caucus, filled Cowen’s old electors with 
pride, extorted the admiration of his Tory opponents, and 
found an echo outside Newcastle in Radicals of the old school. 
Cooper,” the last survivor of the great Chartist leaders, wrote 
to Cowen: “I am delighted to see your noble determination 
to have no committee and to defy the hateful Caucus. Here 
my heart grieves to see what they have done” (here follows 
an account of the doings of the Caucus of the locality, which 
had ousted a veteran of the democracy from the seat, to bring 
in a big manufacturer whose employés were among the leaders 
of the Caucus). “Go on, my dear friend, keep your noble 
and independent way, and may you conquer every foe. Alas! 
for the poor ‘workies,’ they do so fail in gratitude. But we 
must not heed that. They are ours, my friend. We are sworn 
to their cause, let the sacrifice be what it will—only we will 
not be their slaves.” ® 

The caucuses of the whole northern district were anxiously 





























1 Speeches, p. 136. 

2 Thomas Cooper, who paid for the part which he played in the Chartist 
movement by long years of imprisonment, preserved up to the close of his 
life the pure and ardent love for the people which animated him, and was an 
example of one of the noblest types which militant democracy has produced 
in our age. He was the author of a remarkable poem entitled The Purgatory 
of Suicides, but, as was observed on the occasion of his death (in 1892), his life 
was his best poem. 3 Speeches, p. 201. 


SIXTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 239 





awaiting the issue of the conflict at Newcastle. Each of them 
considered Cowen as a personal enemy. They gave the New- 
castle Association their moral support and even more. The 
Caucus of the town of Sunderland, to help in exhorting the 
electors, sent it a gang of energetic and roughish men who 
accentuated the tone of the electoral campaign in their own 
fashion. Things reached such a pitch that Cowen was mobbed 
in the streets, and had mud and stones thrown at him. On 
hearing of this outrage, the leader of the Caucus, a man re- 
spected and respectable in his private capacity, was much 
distressed. He and his leutenants, at least those who stood 
nearest to him, were far from having provoked not only the 
personal violence, but even the abuse of which Cowen was 
the victim, but they had let loose the party fanaticism of the 
mob, had stimulated it to fury by means of organization, and 
eventually they were overborne. 

At the election Cowen headed the poll, but the number of 
electors who would not vote for him was enormous. There 
could be no doubt about it, his position was to a great extent 
undermined. He felt the blow and when thanking his sup- 
porters for having returned him once more he declared that he 
would never stand for Newcastle again. And when the Parlia- 
ment elected in 1885 was dissolved (in 1886), Cowen did not 
come forward. In reply to invitations to stand, he explained 
that it was impossible for him to accept the position which the 
Caucus imposed on a member. He reminded his constituents 
that he readily submitted to party requirements except when 
his conscience bade him take up an independent attitude, and 
pointing out how this claim to think for himself, and vote 
in accordance with his convictions, had drawn upon him the 
hatred and the persecution of the Caucus, he said: “This con- 
duct did not concern me greatly while it was confined to a body 
of bilious party zealots, but at the last election their proceed- 
ings were endorsed by upwards of 7000 Liberal electors, who 
not only voted against me, but some of them accompanied 
their opposition by acts of personal violence which I have cer- 
tainly not forgotten, and (I fear) not forgiven. After such a 
demonstration, there was no other course but retirement open 
to an honourable and independent man. I am willing to do 
my duty in any sphere, however high or however humble, to 


240 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [sEconp Part 





which my fellow-citizens call me; but I am under no obli- 
gation to become a party slave, or subject myself to spiteful 
persecution for no useful purpose. What the Caucus wants is 
a political machine. I am a man, not a machine... .”} 


ee ncaa from political life. 
The Caucus had won the day. 


IV 


The defeat which it inflicted on Cowen was more than a per- 
sonal defeat; it marked in a striking way the overthrow of the 
political tendency which Cowen personified, of the old Radical- 
ism which relied solely on principles as a motive of action, 
for which private judgment was not only the first of rights but 
even the first of duties, in the eyes of which all subjection, all 
dependence, whether it came from above or from below, was 
equally contemptible, and which, deaf to the seductions of 
power, had too much faith in the influence of well-propagated 
ideas to take unfair advantage of the material strength of the 
masses and too much moral and intellectual pride to win them 
by flattery and cajolery. The representatives of the old Radi- 
calism left standing after the advent of the Caucus felt and 
saw that the latter was scattering their ideals, their political 
and moral conceptions to the winds, and they shouted a warning 
to all within hearing. The pretext that the Caucus was serv- 
ing the cause of Liberalism did not allay the anxiety even of 
such of these Radicals as were closely connected with official 
Liberalism. Thus Mr. Leonard Courtney was not stopped by 
his position as Under-Secretary of State in the Gladstone 
Ministry from putting the democracy on their guard against 
the new tendencies. Addressing his electors on the occasion 
of the inauguration of a political Association of workmen, he 
pointed out that the first care of such societies should be to 
make their members think. “Teach them,” he said, “to dis- 
cuss and examine and criticise and probe to the bottom the dif- 
ferent problems set before them. Do not bring working-men 
together simply for the purpose of passing a prearranged vote.” 
While warning them against those who pretend that Working- 
men’s Associations have no concern with education, but that 


1 Times, 2d of July, 1886. 


SIXTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 241 





the object of them is “to make use of the force that working- 
men possess, to bring it into play, to prevent its being wasted, 
to use it in the most powerful manner when occasion arises for 
its employment,” Mr. Courtney observed that machinery was 
useless if it lacked motive power, that it was idle if it did not 
preserve and develop individual force, and that it might even 
become dangerous by reducing men to the level of automa- 
tons. “Now you may ask,” added Mr. Courtney, “why is it 
I have suggested these things for your reflection to-day? Is 
there any danger that the Association we are inaugurating to- 
night or corresponding Associations that have been established 
throughout the country may be affected in this manner? I 
think there is. I think we see in our country a tendency of 
machinery to supersede individuality, and a tendency on the 
part of the people to trust to machinery instead of maintain- 
ing individual activity. There are creeping among us some 
of the signs of a detestable demagogism . . . so that we are 
in danger through the popularization of our institutions of 
degrading our political life.” ?~ 

Exhortations of this kind did not find much echo in the 
country nor men to bestow them on the public. Those who 
uttered them, those who still confessed and professed the 
creed of old Radicalism, daily appeared with more distinctness, 
both to themselves and to others, like the survivors of an 
extinct race. Mr. Joseph Cowen noted it with melancholy: 
“ Radicalism as expounded by these Fathers of the Faith has 
become a tradition merely. ... Here and there a Radical of 
the old type may be found, but he lives in the midst of a popu- 
lation that does not understand him. A Fifth-monarchy Man 
would hardly be more out of place. ... When the ‘dew of 
youth was fresh upon me,’ I espoused the principles and be- 
came enamoured of the teachings of these apostles of philo- 
sophic democracy. Amidst every vicissitude of fortune and 
life, I have striven to be faithful to their traditions and to 
uphold —I only know too well at how great a distance — their 
policy and to expound their creed. But a generation has 
arisen that ‘does not know Joseph.’ They conceive all inde- 
pendent thought heresy, all generosity to opponents weakness, 
and are puzzled and alarmed when praise or blame is dispensed 
1 Speech at Liskeard, Times, 25th of November, 1881. 

VOL; I-28 


242 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





discriminately, when a man’s principles don’t turn with the 
tide and the times, when more regard is shown for measures 
than for men, for truth than for victory.” ! 

Divided by a_gulf from_the Liberal middle-class, from the 
plutocracy with the Liberal trade-mark, the old Radicals were 
just_as unable to appeal to the militant elements of Liberalisin, 
to the progressives. The Caucus, with all the tendencies which 
it embodied, absorbed most of these elements, except a few 
groups of irreconcilables and extremists, and the classic Radi- 
cals remained, so to speak, in the air. There was no longer 
room for them under the Caucus. Cowen’s case showed with 
startling clearness that there could be no exception to the gen- 
eral rule; it was no use trying to combine the thoughtful and 
independent Radical with the tribune and the man of action 
capable of rousing the masses; the one excluded the other. 

The old Radicalism was dead, quite dead. 
































Vv 


Classic Radicalism was already breathing its last when the 
Caucus came into power, and the latter in reality was only its 
undertaker and its grave-digger. The case was not the same 
with moderate Liberalism, which the Caucus found still erect and 
on which it fastened in a special way. Of less purer metal than 
classic Radicalism, with a considerable admixture of alloy, it 
stood wear and tear better. It was not dead toward the end 
of Gladstone’s second Ministry, but it also was hard hit, and 
in its best points. The old Liberalism was not represented 
merely by aristocratic Whigs of reactionary tendencies and plu- 
tocrats engendered by the successful middle-class. It included 
a good many men who without attaining to the moral grandeur 
of the classic Radicals, whose spirit had the temper of steel, 
were sterling characters, with genuine popular sympathies, 
with a broad-minded faith in mankind and in liberty, of manly 
independence allied to wise moderation. They did not repre- 
sent so much a caste or a class, as a real political temperament, 
the moderate temperament in the best, that is to say, in the 
true sense of the word. Forster’s case proved that_they too 





1 Speech to the electors of Newcastle, 3d of January, 1881 (Life and 
Speeches, p. 182). 


SIXTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 243 





could not find favour_in the eyes of the new Radicalism, and 
as it happened, not because of the failings of the aristocratico- 
plutocratic Whiggism, from which they were more or less free, 
but_owing to their qualities of firm and sober moderation and 
independence of mind, which were particularly odious to the 

( the Caucus, with its rigidly uniform action, was not suited for 
the logical or ethical operations of sorting or selection; it 
crushed or threw out everything that did not fit into its 
mould. 

There was a collision and an explosion when men of great 
force of character like Forster were in question; the process 
went on more quietly in the immense majority of instances 
in which the material was more malleable, as is generally the 
case with men of moderate opinions; they were assimilated or 
eliminated without much friction or noise. This double opera- 
tion, which we have been able to observe from the first appear- 
ance of the Caucus Associations, was perceptibly accentuated 
by the victory of 188Q_and by the impression which it gave, 
rightly or wrongly, of the strength of the new Radicalism 
represented by the Caucus. In reality, as has been proved 
above, the Whig contingents had not fought this battle with 
less success, or demonstrated their existence in a less conclu- 
sive fashion. Mr. Gladstone made allowance for this. Often 
as he exerted himself to evoke the democracy, he none the 
less remained, owing to his education and the connections of 
his early career, as it were a Conservative brake on the new 
Liberalism, especially in regard to forms handed down by tra- 
dition which left a deep impression on his character. Conse- 
quently when he returned to power he felt bound to give the 
Whigs their proper share in the government, and he adorned 
his Ministry with a goodly number of lords, half of whom had 
seats in the Cabinet. The Whigs were not much better off for 
this. In the Cabinet the Radicals were in a small minority, 
but in “the country they soon managed to reverse the propor- 
tions, chiefly by means of the new Organization. 

The equilibrium between the moderate and the Radical _ele- 
ment in the “hundreds,” which at first was preserved after-a 
fashion, was destroyed after 1880. The advanced element be- 
gan to press the moderates closely, being excited by the victory 

































































244 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





at the general election and by the decisive tone of the policy of 
the Gladstone Ministry, which seemed to show that the tide 
was flowing on the side of the militants. Their propelling 
force was at the same time considerably increased by a change 
of seeming insignificance, in the external conditions of the 
Associations, — the abolition of the subscription. According to 
the “ Birmingham plan” it was optional, but in several Associa- 
tions, especially in those which had been formed out of the ele- 
ments of the old registration societies, it was still compulsory. 
The extreme smallness of the sum — two shillings or one shil- 
ling a year — could not, it would appear, keep any one out; it 
was not, strictly speaking, a qualification. However, it did not 
find favour, and after 1880 the subscription was no longer de- 
manded in almost all the caucuses. The Associations were 
soon filled with members who paid nothing but held forth a 
good deal. Being swamped by numbers, the members who 
belonged to the old political staff carried a rule in several local- 
ities that no one could be on the council or the committee with- 
out paying a trifling subscription, but this remained a dead 
letter. A moderate and conciliatory spirit was not the distin- 
guishing mark of the non-paying members; they were rather 
inclined to display the contrary, if only for the purpose of 
asserting their equality with those who paid. Among the 
moderates some, of a politic turn, let them act or rather shout 
as they pleased, in the expectation, which was correct up to a 
certain point, that they would expend their energy in vehement 
language and demeanour. Others, less Machiavellian or less in- 
dulgent, feeling more and more out of their element in the Asso- 
ciations, left them without, however, breaking with the party. 
The Caucus, or what came to the same thing, the militant ele- 
ment which made the Caucus its stronghold, only assumed 
greater authority in consequence; it spoke in the name of the 
party, and appeared all the more entitled to do so because it 
invariably supported the policy of the great leader of the 
party, of Mr. Gladstone, at whose shrine all the Liberals wor- 
shipped. All of them more or less, therefore, followed the 
skirmishers. The timid and sulky ones grumbled, but never- 
theless followed, as did their representatives in the House. 
Others again, and there were a great many of them, let them- 
selves go with their eyes shut, buoyed up by their faith in Mr. 
































SIXTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 245 





Gladstone. Finally the rest, more critical or more timorous, 
would have much liked to resist, but what were they to do? 
They had no organization of their own. The Associations of 
the old type (Registration Societies and others), which survived 
and which supplied the old-fashioned Liberals with a base of 
operations, hastened after 1880, in order to comply with practi- 
cal requirements or with fashion, to remodel themselves on the 
“ Birmingham plan,” and after having changed their skin they 
soon worked themselves up to Caucus pitch. Then what flag 
were the moderate Liberals to hoist, or what cry could they 
adopt? Were they to proclaim themselves the real and only 
depositaries of historic Liberalism’? This was perhaps a 
demonstrable proposition for the learned in history, but the 
bulk of the party flocked towards the sign, and this was out- 
side the door of the Caucus, brand-new and with flaming let- 
ters: The Liberal 500, the Liberal 600, the Liberal 800! and all 
“representative,” “strictly representative” of the Liberal party, 
all recognized and quoted on the great exchange of Liberalism 
where their bills were readily accepted and they themselves 
were drawn upon even more readily. No doubt, the moderates 
always had the resource, so important in English electoral life 
even in our own day, of fortune and social relations. But they 
could only avail themselves of it in exceptional cases; for their 
own plutocrat relatives, following the bent of their opportunist 
temperament, had gathered round the new sign in order to 
have a second string to their bow, just as on the turf a man 
backs two horses in the same race to make more certain of 
winning. Consequently, if the moderates would not follow, 
they were bound to keep in the background. Under either alter- 
native the organization of the Caucus, because it was the or- 
ganization of the Liberal party commanded by Mr. Gladstone, 
disqualified them as Liberals. 

As Liberals, yes, but you can preserve the grace of the mod- 
erate state as Conservatives; why don’t you join us then, cried 
the Conservatives. Since the Gladstone Ministry (of 1880) 
had set to work and had adopted a Radical policy by its reform 
of the land laws in Ireland, the Tories had not ceased to warn 
the Whigs, to point out the depth of the abyss into which they 
were plunging after the Radicals, who were carried away by the 
demon of subversion and destruction. By way of apologue 


246 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp Part 





they quoted Voltaire’s story of the two philosophers who when 
ordering a dish of asparagus at an inn could not agree as to 
whether it should be cooked with butter or plain. While they 
were waiting for the dish and beguiling their hunger with a 
discussion of high metaphysics, one of the two philosophers, 
being heated by the dispute, had a stroke of apoplexy, where- 
upon the other rushed into the kitchen crying out: The whole 
of it plain! The same thing would happen to the Whigs and 
the Radicals feasting together; the end would be the death of 
Liberalism dressed with melted butter, and Radicalism would 
be served up quite plain. 

“ Cut yourself adrift” —the advice was easy to give but not 
so easy to follow. They were tolerably near the Conservatives 
in point of feeling, no doubt; but what a gap was placed be- 
tween the two by the memory of long struggles and of rival- 
ries, of traditional and hereditary grudges; by the amour-propre 
of a man with a house of his own, to whom it would be worse 
than death to take up an abode in a lIqdging in his old age. 
His old-fashioned mansion is heavily mortgaged, it seems to 
sink under the weight of encumbrances and lawsuits, but it 
still bears his name, and it is there that everybody comes to see 
him. If the worst comes to the worst, if fate is inexorable, well 
then . . . in any event there will always be time to leave the 
old home. The Whigs, therefore, in great perplexity and de- 
moralized by the sight of the tide of Radicalism submerging 
their venerable principles and their habits, did not flatly reject 
the advances made to them, but replied that the time had not 
yet arrived and perhaps would never arrive, that the advent of 
a revolutionary party was not at present a sufficient reason for 
discarding the good elements of Liberalism, and that their 
position was not so desperate; that Whigs and Radicals could 
still fight side by side for many years to come; that it could not 
even be otherwise, for “they (the Whigs) could do nothing 
without the Radicals, and the Radicals, in spite of all their 
bluster, could do nothing without them.”’ And if, they said 


1“The Whigs,’’ Nineteenth Century, July, 1883, by Lord Cowper (who had 
just left the Gladstone Ministry with W. E. Forster, in consequence of the 
“‘Kilmainham treaty’? made with Parnell). Cf. also ‘‘The Revolutionary 
Party,’’ by Lord Dunraven (Jbid., August, 1881) ; ‘‘ The Liberal Victory from 
a Conservative Point of View,” by Alfred Austin (Fortnightly Review, 1st 


SIXTH CHAP. | THE CAUCUS IN POWER 247 





to themselves, there is a dissolution of partnership, what is to 
become of the firm, and how are the customers to be kept? 
This, in fact, was the great preoccupation of the Whigs, which 
made them follow with many a grumble or groan. It was still 
the question of the sign, though looked at from another point of 
view. And it was not only considerations of interest that were 
involved for them; responsibility and duty were also at stake. 
The authority of the Whig partners was impaired in the estab- 
lishment and even disregarded by a great number of customers, 
but still they were able to sign for the firm; -thanks to the deli- 
cate attention of Mr. Gladstone, they had a numerical majority 
in the Cabinet. This contradictory position of the Whig 
leaders made them repress the anxiety and the apprehension 
aroused by Radicalism with its great engine of war, the Cau- 
cus, and even check tendencies towards resistance among their 
followers. 

Tendencies of this kind showed themselves here and there 
in the provinces. luberals of sincere convictions but thor- 


oughl ion that the 
game was up, and they wished to STREETS 


he Caucu tio ainst The 
great Whig chiefs in London to whom the scheme was sub- 
mitted replied that they quite sympathized with the views of 
their moderate friends, that they shared their opinions only 
too strongly, but in the end they pronounced against the plan 
of a new Organization in order not to break up the Liberal 
party.’ It was still the question of the firm that preoccupied 
them. This advice was deferred to, and the scheme for an 
independent Organization of moderates was given up. It is 
very doubtful moreover, for the reasons stated above, whether 
they would have succeeded in stemming the Caucus. They 
were too doctrinaire, too sober for the masses, as may be seen 
from the analysis of one of these draft schemes which has been 
communicated to me, the programme of a Moderate Liberal 








June, 1880) ; ‘‘ Whigs, Radicals, and Conservatives’’ (Quarterly Review, Vol. 
CL, 1880) ; ‘‘ The Position of the Whigs,’”’ by C. M. Gaskell (Nineteenth Cen- 
tury, December, 1881) ; ‘‘ A Whig Retort’ (Edinburgh Review, January, 1882) ; 
“‘Future of Parties and Politics ’’ (Quarterly Review, Vol. CLVI, 1883). 

1] have been made acquainted with a correspondence exchanged on this 
subject, in 1884, between some moderate Liberals of one of the largest towns 
in Lancashire, and Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen. 


248 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





Union. Paragraph 2 of this document ran as follows: “Since 
it is a fact that in political contention only those triumphs are 
enduring which result in an admission by the conquered of the 
justice of the victor’s cause, and that political action can only 
be permanently successful where reaction is barred, this Asso- 
ciation shall rather strive to undermine and slowly extirpate 
adverse opinion and convert its professors than attempt to 
stifle utterance and imperiously coerce its professors.” Stipu- 
lating that the Association would be open to every Liberal, 
however radical his views, the scheme declared that the very 
fact of his joining the Association would mean on their part 
“both a readiness to accept compromise and an abandonment 
of all effort to force on premature measures by violent language 
and fanatical agitation;” “the Association does not pledge 
itself to support any definite Liberal principle nor to uphold 
or seek to establish any definite Liberal political system; but 
it is a confederacy of Liberals of a particular temperament 
and cast of mind to support the political action of other Lib- 
erals of the same moral and intellectual character. For such 
as these there is no need to lay down principles or formulate 
political creeds; for from where Liberals assemble to consult 
for the public good and moderation prevails, Truth, Reason, 
and Justice cannot be absent.” ' 

Prevented, in spite of their inmost feelings, from leaving the 
ranks of official Liberalism, the moderates were anything but 
reassured. And before long, on the eve of the general election 
(of 1885) when the principal representative of the new Radi- 
calism and the creator of the Caucus, Mr. Chamberlain, issued 
his “unauthorized programme,” a panic took place among the 


1The printed copy of the draft scheme placed at my disposal was anno- 
tated by its authors with a freedom of language and style which reflected the 
inmost thoughts of their political co-religionists much better than the stale 
and prosy document which we have just analyzed, and for this reason some 
interest may attach to the reproduction of these annotations. Paragraph 1, 
which proclaims that the object of the Association will be the defence of Lib- 
eral principles, the diffusion of Liberal ideas, and the maintenance of the Lib- 
eral party in power, is commented on by the remark: ‘‘ Avoid accusation of 
Toryism.’’ The other paragraphs analyzed above are accompanied by the fol- 
lowing annotations: ‘‘ Liberal party used to be the party of freedom; now Lib- 
erals are becoming a party of coercion;”’ ‘‘The chief character toleration — 
even Chamberlain admissible if he were not so violent and domineering; ’”’ 
‘No horse ought to be ridden to death; ’’ ‘‘ Temperament the bond of union.” 


SIXTH CHAP. ] THE CAUCUS IN POWER 249 





moderate Liberals. It was no longer from benevolent Tories, 
it was from their own camp that a cry went forth that the 
time had come, that there was only one thing to be done, — to 
go over to the Conservatives. 

The Conservatives might take them in, but could they offer 
a shelter, a real shelter for their principles and their habits ? 
Was the ground which was quaking beneath their feet in the 
old abode of Liberalism more solid in the not less old-fashioned 
dwelling of Conservatism ? What was going on behind the door 
at which the fugitives would demand admittance? This is what 
I propose to investigate by returning to the Organization of the 
Conservative party, which we have left at the moment when the 
great democratic Reform of 1867 was about to take place. 


SEVENTH CHAPTER 
THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 
I 


THE extension of the parliamentary suffrage to the urban 
masses conceded by the Act of 1867 looked very threatening 
for the Conservative party. The boroughs, which had always 
been the stronghold of Liberalism, were now about to throw the 
counties definitively into the shade. When taking the “leap 
in the dark,” or rather after having taken it, the Tories, and 
Disraeli in particular, entertained the hope that the popula- 
tions of the towns would supply them as well as the other 
side with an electoral contingent, that they could not be deaf 
to Tory influences and principles. Whether this calculation 
was a fanciful one or not, it_was clear that the future of the 
Conservative party would henceforward depend on the urban, 
voters. To lay hands on them forthwith became the main 
‘preoccupation of the Conservatives. They hastened to form 
organizations for enlisting the new electors. As after the year 
1832, it was Lancashire which took the lead. In several 
manufacturing towns of this county the old “Constitutional 
Societies’? were revived, or new ones were founded. ‘This 
example was followed in various other places, but not to any 
very great extent. The organizing movement thus inaugu- 
rated, which was in a way a new and enlarged edition of that 
which had been started thirty years before, in consequence of 
Sir Robert Peel’s ery of “ Register, Register, Register!” was 
characterized by a novel and highly significant feature: the 
Conservative Associations scattered throughout the country 
were combined into a confederation, entitled the National 
Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, repre- 
sented by a body of delegates to be renewed from year to year. 
The business of the Union was to stimulate and direct the 

250 























SEVENTH CHAP.]| THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 251 
° 





organizing movement in the country, by bringing about the for- 
mation of new Associations, by helping the existing Organiza- 
tions with advice and information, providing them with lectur- 
ers and speakers for their meetings, publishing pamphlets and 
reprinting speeches delivered on important political questions. 

The part assigned to the new institution was, to be sure, not 
of high political importance, while the local Associations which 
formed the basis of the Union were only voluntary combina- 
tions of partisans, devoid of a representative character, mod- 
elled on the usual pattern of Registration Societies. None the 
less the fact remained that g new central authority, invested 
with an elective mandate and_representing, although in an 
indirect and incomplete fashion, Conservative opinion in 
the country, was taking its place in the Organization of the 
Conservative party side by side with the Whip appointed by 
the parliamentary leader of the party. The power of the 
new authority could not become a reality so long as Con- 
servative opinion had no independent existence in the true 
sense of the word. The body of Conservative opinion which 
represented all that was left standing after the break-up of 
the old society — traditions, interests, prejudices — the whole 
knit together by ties of social subordination, continued as in 
the past to look for and obey the word of command proceeding 
from above, from the great chief of the party. The Whip and 
his colleagues of the Central Conservative Office, who managed 
the electoral business of the party, had therefore nothing to 
fear from the Union which had been set up towards the end 
of 1867. They looked on it, with some condescension, as an 
‘auxiliary which might render service to the cause. <A few 
years later, to prove their good-will to the Union, they accom- 
modated it in the rooms of the head office of the party. But 
the new Organization took care not to forget its place. “The 
Union has been organized rather as a handmaid to the party 
than to usurp the functions of party leadership,’’! as the presi- 
dent of the Union (H. Cecil Raikes) said at one of its first 
annual meetings. Although representative in point of form, 
the organization of the Union was profoundly imbued with the 
aristocratic spirit which was the essence of the old Toryism. 
Apart from the usual hierarchy of President, Vice-President, 



































1 Report of Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Conference, 1873, p. 10. 


252 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





etc., it had Patrons and Vice-Patrons, who were generally 
noblemen and often of the first rank, dukes. The Council, 
which wielded executive power, contained in addition to the 
delegates of local Associations a considerable number of non- 
elected members. 

The formation of the local Associations, which at first pro- 
ceeded somewhat slowly outside Lancashire, received a marked 
impulse after the year 1870, when Disraeli entrusted the task 
of organization to a young barrister who has since become one 
of the most conspicuous of the Tory statesmen, Mr. (now Sir) 

ohn Gorst. Devoting himself zealously to the discharge of his 
duties, he looked out for the energetic men of Tory views in 
the constituencies, formed them into groups, stimulated them 
to action, started Associations, and in a few years succeeded in 
considerably extending the system in the towns. Great pains 
were taken to attract the masses to the Organizations. The 
men of action in the party admitted that they had “outlived 
the time of great family influences, and also that period which 
succeeded the first Reform Bill, which might be called the 
period of middle-class influence in boroughs,” and that they 
were “ living in a day in which the people were to be applied 
to in a much more direct, clear, and positive manner than was 
the case under the old forms of the constitution.”! Besides, 
had not the line of the new route been marked out by the great 
leader of the party, by Mr. Disraeli? Was it not he who had 
long ago raised the standard of popular Toryism ? 


II 


Popular Toryism was in fact the bridge which Disraeli built 
for himself when he passed from Radicalism to Conservatism 
at the beginning of his career. Throwing in his lot with the 
latter, he set to work to clear Toryism, in his own mind, from 
the stigma of being the reactionary party which was generally 
held to attach to it. His subtle reasoning, aided by a powerful 
imagination, supplied him with the historical theory that hos- 
tility to progress and to civil and religious liberty was the out- 
come of a degenerate Toryism, demoralized by a long spell of 
power under exceptional circumstances; that the old Toryism, 


1 Report of Proceedings quoted above. 


SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 2538 





that of the beginning of the eighteenth century, far from being 
an exclusive party, was anxious to take in the whole nation in 
all the variety of its constituent elements from the Throne 
down to the lowest strata of the people, that it was Whiggism 
which had monopolized power for the benefit of an aristocratic 
oligarchy and thereby warped the institutions of England, the 
basis of which is equality, not a levelling and destructive but an 
elevating and constructive equality, not lke that of France 
where the law invests every citizen with equality to prevent 
the elevation of his neighbour, but one which allows every 
subject to rise if he has claims to distinction. Every English- 
man in fact, Disraeli found, is born to civil equality and can 
aspire to the highest positions. With democratic liberties 
England seemed to him to have combined the advantages of 
monarchy, by having set up a popular throne, and the security 
of an aristocracy, by having invested certain orders of citizens 
with legislative functions without conferring on them exclu- 
sive privileges. 

The very genuine sympathy for the people which ran in the 
veins of Disraeli the plebeian, the descendant of outcasts, and 
the admiration for grandeur and magnificence in which his 
imagination indulged, combined in him to produce the odd 
conception of a popular throne and an unprivileged aris- 
tocracy. The romanticism of the day sanctioned, if it did not 
contribute to inspire, the theory of primitive Toryism; and 
reinforced by the sentiments of revolt which the triumph of 
the Liberal middle class in the state, and of individualism in 
the economic life of the nation, had aroused in feeling minds, 
this theory acquired consistency and found expression in the 
Young England movement. The aroma of sentimentalism 
exhaled by Young England soon evaporated, but Disraeli re- 
tained his conception of popular Toryism. It remained his 
creed up to the end of his life, although he did not put it into 
practice. 

To the man of romance, living by imagination, he united the 
fighting politician, contending amid the realities of hfe. For 
years an isolated gladiator, then after endless ordeals leader 
of a group, and finally a great condottiere, he had but one pre- 
occupation — to parry blows and to deliver them; he observed 
but one rule of conduct, that which led to success, even if it 


254 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp parr 





entailed leaving his professions and his engagements behind 


him. Dragging his party along with him, Disraeli brought it, 
by a sage or Of Sips, Dy one Teap-after-anothox To The ver 
threshold of democracy, and in the course of this wild race 
made it discard its reactionary ways. The new departure, far 
from being a development of “popular Toryism,” which was 
only an idealization of the old days, was entirely due to the 
opportunism introduced by Disraeli. It was by swerving from 
the creed, by teaching the Tories not to stand on ceremony 
with the “institutions ” which, according to the orthodox doc- 
trine, ought to form the unassailable foundations of Toryism, 
that Disraeli rejuvenated the decrepit Tory party and procured 
it a fresh lease of power. 

But while making the Conservatives wheel in the direction 
of a levelling type of democracy, Disraeli, in his anxiety to 
justify his opportunism, placed this evolution under the au- 
spices of his old aristocratico-popular creed. From it as from 
a sacred spring he drew the holy water with which he be- 
sprinkled his career of condottiere. Taking good care not to 
use the language of the democrat pure and simple, or of the 
demagogue, not to convey the idea that the government for 
the people which he prized ought to be also a government by 
the people, he maintained that the reforms carried by the Tories 
were in the spirit of the national traditions, that the appar- 
ently hazardous measures which he had passed were really in 
harmony with the venerable institutions of England and the 
conceptions of ‘primitive Toryism. And taking himself, so to 
speak, at his word, the condottiere disappeared in the man of 
romance, reverting to his doctrine of a sublimated Toryism 
embodying the old national character. “The Tory party,” re- 
peated Disraeli, “is nothing if it is: not a national party. It 
is not a confederation of nobles, nor is it a democratic mob, it 
is a party composed of all the numerous classes in the King- 
dom.” The principles of which the Tory party is the champion 
because they alone can give security to England, the principles 
of liberty, of order, of law, and of religion, cannot be aban- 
doned to private judgment or to the caprices or passions of the 
masses. In Disraeli’s eyes the bulwark of English liberty re- 
mains the landed interest, which supplies the community with 
its natural leaders. “The liberty of England rests upon the 



































SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 255 





fact that there is a class which bids defiance alike to despots 
and to mobs, and round which the people can always rally,” 
declared Disraeli, forgetting that the author of the Reform 
Act of 1867 had himself helped to supplant these “natural 
leaders of the people.” 

Thus the “popular Toryism” of Disraeli, viewed as a sin- 
cere and consistent doctrine, had nothing really popular or 
democratic about if within the ordinary political meaning of 
the words, and when his policy did contain these elements he 
denied it. In the long run, then, “popular Toryism” rested 
on an illusion or a verbal juggle which could hardly be dis- 
pelled or explained away by the fact that from 1868 onwards 
Disraeli and his lieutenants were fond of giving a prominent 
place to the “improvement of the condition of the people” in 
the Tory programme side by side with the “maintenance of 
institutions” and the “ preservation of the Empire”; for devo- 
tion to the material welfare of the masses can be practised 
under any political régime, including those of the most reac- 
tionary or even despotic character. Lacking political sub- 
stance, the “popular Toryism” which was brought out under 
Disraeli’s auspices was in reality only a name. It is true that 
in politics a name is often of greater importance than the 
thing, and that of “popular Toryism” was destined to furnish 
a fresh proof of this. 














sue 


The interpretation which the organizers of the party gave 
to the notion of “popular Toryism” was as simple as its real 
meaning was vague and undiscernible. For them to enter on 
the path of popular Toryism marked out by Disraeli meant to 
run after the votes of the multitude for the Tory candidates ; 
to appeal to the people signified for them to enlist it directly 
in the electoral army of the Tory party. In the days of re- 
stricted suffrage when a committee of local notables was 
formed for the occasion just before the election, to attract the 
popular voter one or two artisans were added to it, or a special 
“committee of workingmen” was even created, without, how- 
ever, allowing them the slightest influence in the choice of 
candidates or in the management of the electoral campaign. 


256 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





This tradition was reverted to, and the provisional arrange- 
ments were replaced by a permanent organization, in which as 
many workingmen as possible were enrolled, and no longer 
merely isolated individuals to represent their class. The Asso- 
ciations which were thus formed were often, in reality if not 
in name, clubs which had not much that was political about 
them except the fact that their members bound themselves to 
vote at elections for the Tory candidate. The ways of English 
society and particularly of the Tory section of it not being 
favourable to daily intercourse between men of different classes 
on a footing of equality, the popular element was left to itself 


in those clubs. Besides, yery_of e organizations e 


Conservative party derived this exclusive character from their 
official constitution under which the workingmen were grouped 
separately in Conservative Workingmen’s Associations or 
Clubs, just as in the old days, in the early organizations of 
Lancashire which were constructed in two compartments, one 
for the gentlemen and the other for the common herd brought 
together in the Conservative Operatives’ Societies. 

This creation of electoral regiments, composed exclusively 
of ingmen, did not exactly correspond with Disraeli’s 
grand theory, according to which the Tory party was the 
national party, embracing all the elements of society with 
all_the_vi the variety of their respective conditions and of their 
aspirations in one organic coexistence. Consequently Disraeli 
could not help disavowing, on the first opportunity, the way in 
which “popular Toryism” had been applied in the organiza- 
tion of the party. In 1873, at Glasgow, when receiving the 
representatives of the Association of Conservative Working- 
men among many other deputations, he began by telling them 
that he had never consented to meet any separate body entitled 
“Conservative workingmen.” “T have never,” he said, “been 
myself at all favourable to a system which would lead Con- 
servatives who are workingmen to form societies merely con- 
fined to their class. In the Church and in the polling-booth all 
are equal, and all that concerns Conservative workingmen and 
interests them concerns and interests the great body of Con- 
servatives of whom they form a portion. Therefore, it is to 
the Conservative Association I see before me, of whom a very 
considerable majority consists of workingmen, it is to that 









































SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 257 





Association that I address myself.” The Conservative Work- 
ingmen’s Associations none the less continued to exist, and 
more new ones were founded. The organizers evidently 
thought that theory was one thing” and practice another, 
that_the best way of imparting cohesion to the electoral 
forces was to arrange the voters Senter een 
were grouped in daily life, where classes were very deeply 
divided. The community of interests and even of political 
views subsisting between the different social strata of the 
Conservative party was however insisted on with much empha- 
sis. This was the great argument advanced by Disraeli, who 
affirmed that the Reform of 1867, of which he was the author, 
had been framed with the conviction that the majority of the 
nation and the workingmen in particular were Conservatives. 
He never wearied of repeating that the workingmen were 
undoubtedly Conservatives, that they understood that the 
“greatness and the Empire of England were due to the ancient 
institutions of the country.” The Liberals greeted these asser- 
tions with a merry scepticism, and they had all the more diffi- 
culty in forming an idea of the lower-class Tory because he 
had not come to the front in the general election of 1868; for 
it was precisely in the towns where the masses voted for the 
first time that the Conservatives were defeated. The Associa- 
tions which the Tories founded in and after 1868, succeeded 
however in enlisting a good many artisans who joined with a 
will in the electoral contest in which the Conservatives won a 
brillant victory (in 1874). To the delight of the Tories and 
to the dismay of the Liberals, the fact appeared to be proved 
that the Conservative workingman was not a myth, but a 
reality. The winning side in their transports ascribed all the 
honour to Disraeli, who with his gift of divination had dis- 
cerned the Conservative workingman, who, like a Cuvier, had 
discovered this unknown genus, this new political species.? 



































1 Speech to the Workingmen’s Conservative Associations, at Glasgow, 
22d November, 1873. 

2 On this subject the Times, when Lord Bexeonseuld? s statue was inaugu- 
rated, on the second anniversary of his death, rising to the level of the occa- 
sion, used the following language: ‘In the inarticulate mass of the English 
populace he discerned the Conservative workingman as the sculptor perceives 
a ae prisoned in a block of marble’’ (leading article of the 18th April, 
1883). 


VOL. I—S 


258 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES §[sEeconp part 





The triumph of the Conservatives naturally reacted on the 
local_organization of the party and gave a stimulus to the 
creation of Tory Associations and Clubs in places where none 
existed. But the activity and the influence of the Organiza- 
tions did not increase with their number, it declined rather 
than otherwise. Without spontaneous life of their own, 
having been set up as electoral machinery, they began to 
languish as soon as victory had deprived them of the incentive 
to effort. “The National Union of Constitutional and Con- 
servative Associations” exhibited just as little vitality, its 
annual meetings were dull and insignificant. The profound 
calm of the early years of the Tory administration was fol- 
lowed by the Eastern question, which made the whole country 
hang on the doings of Disraeli (now Lord Beaconsfield). He 
himself, absorbed in great affairs of State, lost sight of the 
local life of the party and of the Associations. He was not 
reminded of them until his triumphal return from the Berlin 
Congress, when nearly fifteen hundred delegates of “ Constitu- 
tional and Conservative Associations” and of “ Conservative 
workingmen ” came to London to pay him their respects. The 
language in which he addressed them threw a somewhat crude 
light on the part which the leaders of the party assigned to 
Associations supposed to represent the free opinion of English 
Conservatism in which the Government sought its inspirations. 
The gist of Lord Beaconsfield’s harangue amounted to a single 
sentence: your duty is to supply us with fighting material for 
the elections, mind you do not forget it. The actual expres- 
sions which he used were not much more toned down. He 
borrowed his arguments and his metaphors from military 
history, which in his eyes embodied for the occasion “the ex- 
perience of mankind in all ages.” ‘All men have agreed,” he 
said, “that in the conduct of public affairs there is nothing 
more precious than discipline, and it is a great mistake that 
discipline is incompatible with the deepest convictions and 
even with the most passionate sentiments. Whether we look 
into military affairs in ancient or modern times, we see many 
illustrations of that principle. J suppose there never was a 
body of men animated by a higher degree of patriotism or who 
extended their influence through a longer period than the Ro- 
man legion; and the Roman legion was a model of discipline. 








SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 259 





So again when the Macedonians contemplated conquering the 
world, they formed their phalanx; and though they were ani- 
mated by so great an idea, still no one can deny that it was the 
discipline of the Macedonian phalanx which contributed to the 
conquest of Asia.” Passing from antiquity to modern times, 
the speaker dwelt on the discipline of Cromwell’s soldiers 
and Wellington’s troops. Then, turning his attention to the 
universe, he discerned that even there discipline was the 
sovereign law: “Nature herself is organized; and if there 
were not a great directing force which controls, guides, and 
manages everything, you have nothing but volcanoes, earth- 
quakes, and deluges. In public hfe without discipline — 
organization — similar effects would be produced.” Breaking 
off in this discourse on military history and cosmic philosophy 
to which he was treating the “Conservative, Constitutional, 
and Workingmen’s Associations,” he said: “I wish to say one 
word upon Workingmen’s Associations. I favoured them 
from the beginning [he had evidently forgotten his own speech 
at Glasgow in 1873], and always had confidence in their 
future, though they have been subjected, as many have been 
in their infancy, to taunts about their character and influence. 
I have been asked often why should workingmen be Conserva- 
tives? And I reply,—of all men, workingmen should be most 
Conservative. It is no light thing to belong to a nation where 
liberty and order coexist in the greatest degree. That must 
benefit all classes, and most particularly it must benefit the 
workingmen.” Then, after this digression, he reverted to the 
necessity of discipline. “It is for you now,” he said to the del- 
egates, “the assembled officers of the great constitutional army 
that you have formed, to feel convinced of these views... . 
Act upon these views of organization. ... It is only by en- 
couraging discipline that you will be able to maintain your- 
self in that power which you have obtained.”! Perhaps Lord 
Beaconsfield’s speech was accentuated in consequence of the 
challenge proceeding from the opposite camp, where the 
Caucus was being noisily established. The day after his 
return from Berlin, when the frenzied shouts of the crowd 
which had dragged him in triumph like a victorious general 
through:the streets of London had scarcely died away, the 


1 Times, 7th of August, 1878. - 


260 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





mighty voice of his illustrious rival, Mr. Gladstone, was heard, 
summoning the Liberals to organize themselves on the “ Bir- 
mingham plan,” for an attack on the Tory position.’ Disraeli’s 
first impulse was to reply by sarcasm, by the nickname of the 
Caucus. Then, bethinking himself of the contest, the old con- 
dottiere spoke of discipline. The day of battle arrived, and 
in spite of the discipline of his troops, they were beaten and 
routed. Evidently there were forces still more powerful than 
the Roman legion and the Macedonian phalanx. 


TY: 


The day after the defeat, the Tories were confronted with 
the usual question: who is to blame? ‘The simplest explana- 
tion which occurred to many minds was, exactly as with the 
Liberals in 1874, that the Conservatives had been beaten 
because they were badly organized, while their opponents 
possessed the perfected weapon of the Caucus. The Tories 
unhesitatingly rejected even the idea of borrowing this in- 
stitution from the latter, they had repudiated it with virtuous 
indignation from its first appearance. In fact, at the begin- 
ning of the year 1878 the Central Conservative Office unbur- 
dened its conscience in a circular to the adherents of the party 
which held up the Birmingham system to their reprobation. 
Then at the height of the discussion aroused in the country 
by Forster’s conflict with the Bradford Caucus the Tory head- 
quarters took advantage of it to point out to the public, 
through the medium of the Times, that the Conservative party 
did not resort to the odious practices of the Caucus, so deroga- 
tory to the freedom of members of Parliament, that the Tory 
Organization did not impose its authority by force, but left 


complete liberty to all, etc.? Having become still more hostile 
to the Radi laucus after their rout i les non 


the less thought that they needed _an equally strong Organiza- 
tion, and they were very anxious to create one, to hit upon a 
sort of caucus which however would not be the Caucus.’ 

While these views and wishes, of a more or less definite or 





























1 The Southwark speech mentioned above, p. 183, note. 

2 Times, 10th of August, 1878. 

3 Cf. the article ‘‘ Conservative Reorganization ’’ (Blackwood’s Magazine, 
June, 1880), one of the first of the many expressions of opinion of this kind. 


SEVENTH CHAP.]| THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 261 





vague character, were agitating the Conservatives; the death 
of Lord Beaconsfield supervened, in 1881. The confusion in 
the Tory camp became complete. Lord Beaconsfield seemed 
to have carried to the grave all the courage and hope with 
which he had managed to inspire the Tory party during their 
long years of wandering in the wilderness of opposition. Dis- 
cipline became relaxed, and a mutiny broke out among the 
rank and file. Flying in the face of all the proprieties of 
Tory society and its traditions of discipline and of deference 
to its leaders, the malcontents openly defied their authority, 
treated them with contempt, charged them with being the cause 
of the distress of the party. This revolt against the chiefs 
was produced by the mingling of two currents—the impa- 
tience of the hot-blooded younger members and the ambition 
of the plebeians of the party. The old leaders seemed to the 
former too feeble, too easy-going, nay, actually incapable of 
heading a victorious attack on the Liberal Ministry. Resolu- 
tion and repeated doses of audacity were wanted, they thought, 
to revive the drooping courage of the Tories, and to strike ter- 
ror into the hearts of their rivals. The leader of the Opposi- 
tion, Sir Stafford Northcote, a parliamentary statesman of the 
old school, and a genuine Conservative in the best sense of 
the word, did not consider a reckless dare-devil policy the best 
suited for restoring the fortunes of a party or the most worthy 
of the Conservative party in particular. The rebels, four in 
number, formed themselves into a group of free-lances, called 
the “ Fourth Party,” and waged a pitiless war alike against the 
Liberal Ministers and the official leaders of the Conservative 
party. The audacity and the violent language of the assail- 
ants more than made up for their small number, and the two 
front benches had much to put up with from the Tory guerilla. 
The position of Sir Stafford Northcote and his lieutenants, con- 
tinually attacked on their own flank, was very like that in 
which Lord Hartington, the leader of the Liberal Opposition 
after the defeat of 1874, was placed by Mr. Chamberlain and 
his friends. The analogy was destined to become more com- 
plete. The Tory rebels were not content with harrying the 
leaders in the discharge of their duties: they fastened on 
the leadership, and just as the Birmingham Radicals charged 
the Liberal leaders with the original sin of Whiggism, so the 


262 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





young Tories held up their chiefs to public reprobation as 
aristocrats. 

This grievance which, stated by Tories and to Tories, was 
certainly extraordinary and well-nigh inconceivable, had its 
hidden source in the recent events of the inner life of the 
party. Disraeli’s last Ministry, lke all the preceding Tory 
Cabinets, was composed almost entirely of grands seigneurs. 
In the House of Commons there were a g ny men of 
plebeian_origin belonging to the party, especially among the 
borough members. But the old Tory tradition made them 
1 ili g. nseryati 
army supplied by the counties, where the electors, who were 
not numerous before the year 1885, voted obediently for the 
great landlords. The urban constituencies, which were more 
difficult to carry, were left to the “new men,” while the coun- 
ties remained a sort of preserve for the aristocrats, for the 
gentlemen of England. It was the latter too who generally 
divided the spoils of office, without however shocking anybody 
thereby; it was in the nature of things. It was all very well 
for the Reform Bill of 1867 to act as a readjustment of politi- 
cal power between the boroughs and the counties for the bene- 
fit of the former, and for the Tory majority of 1874 to be 
indebted for part of its strength to the borough constituencies 
which had just been wrested from the Liberals, thanks to the 
efforts of the organizers referred to above; in spite of this, 
when the Ministry was constituted and the subordinate offices 
distributed, the plebeians of the towns were forgotten, including 
even those whose energy had helped to win the victory. This 
inspired some of them with keen resentment against the “ aris- 
tocratic clique” which “monopolized all the places,” which 
“took to themselves all the good things,” and in their heart of 
hearts they swore a sort of Hannibal’s oath against them. On 
the eve of the elections of 1880 Lord Beaconsfield remembered 
the forgotten ones, and having sent for one of them said to 
him: “ Why didn’t you come and see me and remind me of your 
existence? It is impossible for me to think of everybody, 
especially when there are so many who are pushing themselves.” 
The offer of reparation came too late, there was too much bit- 
terness in the hearts of the plebeians, and they were not slow 
in giving vent to it after the disappearance of the great leader 





























SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 263 





for whom they had retained affection and respect in spite of 
all their grievances. The attitude which the malcontents were 
about to take up was fraught with important consequences for 
the fortunes of the Tory party and even for the future of Con- 
servatism in England. One might perhaps parody the mot of 
Pascal that if Cleopatra’s nose had been longer the face of the 
world would have been changed, and say that if the “good 
things” had been more widely distributed in 1874, the move- 
ment caused by the Young Tory revolt which broke out after 
Lord Beaconsfield’s death would not have arisen till later, 
some years later; but at the pace at which things have been 
going in England since the year 1867 a few years means a very 
long stage. Discontented plebeians, or at all events persons 
who entirely shared their views, were the very men who 
formed the “Fourth Party,” “taking as a sign” a young 
nobleman who had broken with his own class, Lord Ran- 
dolph Churchill. From the House of Commons the cam- 
paign was carried into the country, at first by the agency of 
the Press. Under the somewhat transparent veil of “Two 
Conservatives” (who were Mr. Drummond Wolf and Mr. 
Gorst), the malcontents published a sort of manifesto which 
from one end to the other was a violent indictment of the Tory 
leaders in general. “If the Tory party,” they declared, “is to 
continue to exist as a power in the State, it must become a 
popular party. ... Unfortunately for Conservatism, its lead- 
ers belong solely to one class; they are a clique composed 
of members of the aristocracy, landowners, and adherents 
whose chief merit is subserviency. The party chiefs live in 
an atmosphere in which a sense of their own importance and 
of the importance of their class interests and privileges is 
exaggerated, and to which the opinions of the common people 
can scarcely penetrate. They are surrounded by sycophants 
who continually offer up the incense of personal flattery under 
the pretext of conveying political information. They half fear 
and half despise the common people, whom they see only 
through this deceptive medium.” The Associations which 
had been formed throughout the country during the years 
1868-1874 “complained that they were not patronized by the 
aristocratic members of the party. It was fortunate that they 
were not. There was no temptation to waste time and energy 


264 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srconp parr 





in organizing demonstrations to which no great man would 
come. ‘They were thus driven to devote themselves to regis- 
tration and the machinery necessary for an election contest. 
The victory of 1874, which was totally unexpected by the 
aristocratic section of the party, was the result. As soon as 
success was achieved, the men who had stood aloof since 1868 
rushed in to share the spoils. A ministry was formed com- 
posed almost exclusively of peers and county members. Those 
by whom the campaign had been planned and fought were 
forgotten. ... The distinction between county and borough 
members was revived. ... Social influence became predomi- 
nant. Independence of political thought was visited with 
the severest punishment. ... In legislation the interests of 
boroughs were subordinated to those of the counties... . 
The Conservative Associations as a natural consequence 
steadily declined; those by whom the work was performed 
gradually withdrew to make way for noisier partisans whose 
main purpose was to recommend themselves to the leaders of 
the party. Defeat was not long in coming. ... Some con- 
stituencies doubtless still possess associations composed of 
earnest workers, with unselfish leaders, who labour for the 
good of the cause.... The entire organization of the Tory 
party must undergo a radical revolution before it can afford 
ground for any well-founded satisfaction. In its existing 
shape it is managed by a committee in London whose names 
are unknown to the people at large, and who act without any 
mandate from the constituencies. The complaint of the indi- 
vidual Associations prior to 1874 that they were not patronized 
by the privileged class can no longer be made. They are cor- 
rupted by patronage and few escape its baneful influence. The 
object for which a great number of the Associations exist is to 
hold periodical demonstrations at which some member of*the 
late Cabinet may exhibit his oratorical talents before the 
admiring crowd. When this has been accomplished, when 
the local leaders have had the satisfaction of shaking hands 
with the great man, their zeal collapses and the Association 
languishes until there is a fresh opportunity of catching a 
lion. ... In the great person’s speech the masses catch no 
word of sympathy for themselves, nothing to show that it is 
their rights, their privileges, their liberties that he is jealous 


SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 265 





to maintain. He isa being made of a different clay and living 
in a different atmosphere from theirs. If these are the means 
on which the Conservative leaders rely for bringing themselves 
back to power, they have a long time to wait.” ? 

Such language as this in the mouth of Tories astonished and 
perhaps delighted people by its audacity, but it was too deeply 
tainted with acrimony and personal rancour to be a true picture 
of the real state of things. The aristocratic devil, although 
doubtless of a very deep hue, was perhaps not so black as they 
painted him; in any event it was not the fact that it was his 
contact with the Associations which threw a spell over them. 
They were not wholly destitute of aristocratic patrons before 
the year 1874; the “ Union of Conservative and Constitutional 
Associations ” ‘owned a fairly good collection, while the local 
Associations, created somewhat recently, had not had the 
opportunity nor the time to acquire the importance which pro- 
cures relations with and visits from persons in a prominent 
position. And if “admiring crowds” thronged round “ great 
men” from London, it was not so much to gratify the latter as 
for their own enjoyment; for the “ multitudes” took a pleasure 
and always do take a pleasure in gazing on a lord or a great 


personage. As a matter of fact, the great majority of the 
Toyies_in the country were far from sharing the passion for 
equality and the rancour of. the revolted plebeians. Their 
appeal, therefore, did not produce the effect of the tocsin of a 
Saint Barthélemy. But it did not die away in space; other 


cries which met it soon blended with it and swelled its volume. 














Vv 


The deposition of the aristocratic leaders demanded by the 
members of the “ Fourth Party ” involved the “radical revoln- 
tion” in the organization of the party, and that in a popu- _ 
lar direction. This last point coincided with the preoccupa- 
tions which had engrossed attention from the very day after 
the elections of 1880, and it presented in a way the solution 
of the problem. Whether from reasons unconnected with 
or akin to the motives which inspired the Fourth Party, 

















1“ Conservative Disorganization,’’ Fortnightly Review, 1882, Vol. 32 (new 
series). 


266 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





several Tories occupying different positions in the social scale 
joined or agreed with them in their proposals relating to the 
organization of the party. The view began to prevail even 
among the aristocratic members of the party, who were more 
enlightened, that the party machinery was antiquated, quite 
unsuited to the “spirit of the times.” “Mr. Chamberlain,” 
they pointed out, “introduced a system of organization founded 
on a popular basis, and greatly benefited his party and himself. 
It is true he also inflicted great damage on the nation, but that 
is owing chiefly to the manner in which the machinery is 
worked, not to the nature of the machine. I am far from 
recommending the Birmingham Caucus as a model to be closely 
followed by the Tory party. But they must take it as a model, 
accepting what is good and discarding what is bad in it. The 
idea is good. Organization to be successful must originate in 
the people. The people must be made interested in party 
politics. The active, pushing local men must be utilized, must 
be given an outlet for their energy and a field for the exercise 
of their talent. ... The people must be interested and taught 
to feel that they can do something more than merely record 
their votes.” ? 

So far as they were addressed to the bulk of the party, these 
exhortations often reached the ears of people already half con- 
vinced of their truth. In more than one great manufacturing 
tawn_the Tories were already engaged in extending the party 
organization, or in creating one_on a wide basis, in order to 
cope with the Radical Caucus. The home of the latter, Bir- 
mingham, was among the first of the towns which imparted 
this movement to the Tory party. Prostrated by the organi- 
zation of Messrs. Chamberlain and Schnadhorst, the Birming- 
ham Tories gradually recovered themselves and set to work 
with much patience and method to form an army. They 
created a permanent organization in every district and ward 
in the form of local Associations and district committees, 
which by a successive delegation of authority eventually 
merged in the central Association. Its leaders sought oppor- 
tunities for making the personal acquaintance of the promi- 
nent people in the wards, and by means of meetings, lect- 











1 Lord Dunraven, ‘‘The Future Constitutional Party,’’ Nineteenth Cen- 
tury, April, 1883. 


SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 267 





ures, banquets, and picnics they endeavoured to bring the 
electors together as much as possible, and to accustom them to 
close their ranks and keep step with one another. Contesting 
every municipal election under the party flag, the Conservative 
Association trained its forces to warfare. In a word, the 
Conservatives set about following the methods of their oppo- 
nents very closely. 

And i was not only the needs of the party, the practical 
requirements of the struggle for existence, which drove the 
Toriesinto_this path. As in most human affairs, personal 
interest, ambition, or vanity were not wanting here too. The 
great manufacturing towns which had always been the seat of 
Liberalism, witnessed the gradual formation of a Tory society 
in their midst. In former days there had been no Tory society 
in the industrial centres, but only a Tory following recruited 
almost entirely among the populace and attracted by the two- 
fold power of “beer and Bible.” In proportion as the political 
and commercial claims of the middle class were satisfied_and 
it had to defend_its own position against new assailants, its. 
Liberalism evaporated_and it became Conservative; it joined 
the Tory party. In this way there were many manufacturers, 
doctors, barristers, and other professional men who hoisted the 
Tory flag. Inhabiting large towns not subject to the territorial 
influences around which gathered the traditional Tory society, 
and made more independent or more proud by their social 
status, they were not so ready as the classic Tory to submit 
tamely to external influences. Shaking hands with the big- 
wigs of the party who occasionally visited their town was not 
enough for them; they aspired to gratifications of a less ephem- 
eral kind. The hole-and-corner management of the affairs of 
the party, so long in vogue with the Tories as with the Liberals, 
if it offered a prospect of real and continuous influence, procured 
it only for a handful of persons who formed the small manag- 
ing coterie, but this latter was materially and morally too nar- 
row to afford scope to all the ambitions which were now coming 
to the front. To penetrate within the charmed circle it was 
necessary to show one’s credentials, and a good many Tories 
who wanted to have a share of influence had no other title 
than their personal qualities. In a word, the Tory party, 
which had hitherto been composed mainly of the aristocracy 



































268 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





ayd the populace, henceforth possessed a tiers état in the large 
towns, and this “third estate” wished to be of importance like 
its histoyic namesake. The local autonomy entailed by the re- 
organization of the party on popular lines held out the desired 
sphere of influence to the Tory tiers ; while at the same time the 
representative machinery of the new organization with its elec- 
tions, public meetings, and speeches helped to a certain extent 
to satisfy the desire for publicity inseparable from the life 
of large agglomerations of individuals. Led by these varied 
motives, the Tories, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes with a 
good grace, borrowed their model of organization from the 
Liberals, while continuing to revile the Caucus in public. 
Without making too much fuss, they set up representative 
Associations in one town after another, which bore a consider- 
able resemblance to the genuine Caucuses. Beginning during 
the period of 1880-1885, this evolution was destined to become 
more and more marked. It coincided with the movement of 
the mutineers of the Fourth Party, and both of them helped 
each other to a considerable extent. Entering on a path which 
Tory foot had never trod, the provincial movement had need to 
be reassured as to the course which it was taking, to be en- 
couraged, nay to be roused. The “ Fourth Party ” and especially 
one of its members, Lord Randolph Churchill, supplied it with 
the required stimulus. 





Vi 


Lord Randolph Churchill had speedily eclipsed his colleagues 
in the eyes of the great mass of the public. He had forced 
himself on their attention by his extraordinary conduct in the 
House. The son of a Tory duke, of a Marlborough, he broke 
his political allegiance; setting every one at defiance, he took 
up a position by himself and, what was still more remarkable, 
he did wonders in it. Full of imperturbable self-confidence, 
with a vehement audacity under perfect control, always in the 
breach, he laid about him with the ferocious resolution of an 
inverted Decius Mus, devoting his opponents to the infernal 
gods. Quickwitted and going to the point, he combined fairly 
close reasoning with incisive and caustic language, which, 
however, had no resemblance to the poisoned irony of Lord 
Salisbury or the biting sarcasin of Disraeli. Churchill’s elo- 


SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION : 269 





quence was not so much stinging as burning, of a coarse 
combustible matter like the bitumen, the darting flames of 
which are thought a grand sight by the crowds at country 
fairs. This was just the effect which his virulent style 
produced on the small:townspeople who were the mainstay 
of the new party organization, commercial employés, clerks, 
newspaper-reading artisans. They applauded him frantically. 
The young lord talking Billingsgate impressed their imagi- 
nations; the champion of the people’s cause, in which char- 
acter he posed, won their hearts. His temperament was a 
wonderful help to him in achieving, almost without loss of 
sincerity, this success with the Tory lower class; for he was un- 
questionably endowed with a popular instinct genuine enough 
to place him in sympathy with the masses although not deep 
enough to take him out of the traditional surroundings of 
Toryism which he made his base of operations. To the classic 
type of popular aristocrat so familiar from the Gracchi down- 
wards, Churchill united the feeling of religious respect of his 
race for “ property ” and the cant of his caste with regard to 
“institutions.” The history of English Toryism even pre- 
sented a precedent, of a somewhat vague resemblance it is true, 
for a similar anomalous political combination which brought 
success to its author. Thus, his mind haunted by the recol- 
lection of Lord Beaconsfield’s wonderful career, and dreaming 
of “ Elijah’s mantle”! falling on him, Lord Randolph adopted 
for his own use Disraeli’s youthful methods as well as his 
creed of popular Toryism. But he discarded the reservations 
of the great deceased leader which wrapped the latter’s doc- 
trine in obscurity ; his would-be successor threw light on it in 
his own fashion. In an oratorical campaign which he made in 
the country, during 1883-1884, he went about proclaiming that 
Radicalism was nothing but humbug; that the Tories whom 
he, Churchill, represented were the most genuine democrats in 
existence, and the best friends of the people. “The well- 
known proverb ‘ Vow populi, vox Dei’ is to the Whig as sound- 
ing brass and tinkling cymbals, for they have always existed 
by corrupting and deceiving the people. To the Radicals it 
is a fetish of the lowest order, for they exist by driving and 


1 Cf. the article by Lord Randolph Churchill, ‘‘ Elijah’s Mantle,’ Fort- 
nightly Review, 1883, Vol. 33. 


210 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





tyrannizing over the people. But to the Tories ‘ Vox populi, 
vox Dei’ is an ever-springing faith, a vivifying principle, an 
undying truth, without which their politics would be as naught, 
without a future and without a hope. ... The Tory party 
of to-day exists by the favour ‘of no caucus, nor for the selfish 
interests of any class. Its motto is—Of the people, for the 
people, by the people.”? “I have long tried to take as my 
motto the phrase used recently by Mr. Gladstone, ‘Trust the 
people.’ There are few in the Conservative party who have 
still that lesson to learn, and who do not yet understand that 
the Tory party of to-day can no longer be dependent upon the 
small and narrow class identified with the ownership of land; 
but that its strength must be found and developed in our large 
towns as well as in our country districts. Trust the people, 
and they will follow us in the defence of the Constitution 
against any and every foe.”? Up in London, at the party 
headquarters, “they regard with some apprehension the popu- 
lar voice, but I have no doubt the popular voice will soon sub- 
side. I look to the Associations to popularize the organization 
of our party. Our object is to obtain a representative execu- 
tive who will hold itself responsible to the electors who ap- 
point it. In fact my idea, and it is the idea of my friends, 
is that the Tory party shall be like the English people — 
a self-governing party.” ? 

This language was a spur to the young Tories in the large 
towns. Lord Randolph Churchill and his friends of the Fourth 
Party felt in their turn that they had support in the country ; 
in their struggle with the leaders of the Tory party they 
could count upon public opinion organized in and identified 
with the popular Associations. The latter thus supplied the 
Neo-Tories with an engine for overthrowing the stronghold of 
the official leaders just as the Neo-Radicals had found one in 
the Birmingham Caucus, which, moreover, inspired Lord Ran- 
dolph with great admiration.* It was the same game, the same 
methods, and the same style. 


1 Speech delivered at Blackpool, 24th January, 1884. 

2 Speech at Birmingham, 16th April, 1884. 3 Tbid. 

4 As he acknowledged afterwards, in his speech the 30th of June, 1886, at 
Manchester, ‘‘I must confess to having always had a sneaking admiration 
for the [Birmingham Liberal] Organization.” 


SEVENTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 271 





They were destined, however, to be reinforced by an inno- 
vation of an original kind. In Lord Beaconsfield’s political 
inheritance Lord Randolph Churchill and his fellow-workers 
had found, among a number of valuable examples and pre- 
cepts, the maxim that to secure victory the imagination of 
the people must be acted on, that the appeal must be made to 
its sentiments, to its emotions. Disraeli had himself endeav- 
oured to give shape to these ideas in Young England, without 
much success, however. His successors and continuators de- 
cided to go to work in a more practical way. Coming down 
from the dreamland in which the young Disraeli dwelt, their 
idea was to adapt themselves to the conditions of society as it 
was. Breaking loose from the landlords who were the princi- 
pal personages in the drama of Young England, they aspired 
to bind all classes of the nation in a sentimental alliance, by 
appealing to popular emotions which would be converted into 
political energy by the impulse given to the imagination. The 
modern method of organization would provide a form for the 
alliance, would supply it with its framework and secure the play 
of its forces. By placing the alliance on a wide national basis 
political energy would be made to circulate through the Tory 
party like the blood throughout the body, and the leaders would 
be reduced to impotence, the haughty, selfish aristocrats who 
monopolized power and bestowed all the good things on their 
friends and relations. Having planned this new coup against 
the chiefs, the Fourth Party were much afraid that the latter 
would get wind of it and frustrate it. Its authors, therefore, 
wrapped it in the deepest secrecy. It was in a corner of the 
Carlton Club itself, the whole atmosphere of which is saturated 
with respect for the leaders, that they met to mysteriously lay 
the foundations of a new political cult for the Tories. Wor- 
shipping at the same shrine of personal honour and national 
pride, the members of the new Association were to form a new 
chivalry. Just as medieval chivalry, animated by the senti- 
ment of honour, made itself the champion of every good 
cause, so the members of the Tory brotherhood were to devote 
themselves to the defence of Conservative principles, to the 
maintenance of religion, of the Estates of the Realm, and of 
the imperial supremacy of the British Empire. They were to 
bind themselves by an engagement and to form companies 


272 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





which they would enter first as squires, rising afterwards to 
the rank of knights. The favourite flower of the illustrious 
departed chief, of Lord Beaconsfield, the primrose, was to be 
the symbol of their alliance, which would take the title of 
“The Primrose Tory League.” The romanticism of the Mid- 
dle Ages did not supply any appropriate methods for making 
the league known and for enlisting members, and its founders 
were obliged to resort to those of our own day and to insert 
advertisements in the newspapers. The future squires and 
knights were asked to send in their names to a bank at which 
Lord Randolph Churchill kept his account. The appeal issued 
in this manner was anonymous, none of the promoters of the 
league signed it, to prevent the secret being discovered. The 
plan met with the support of a few Tory members of Parlia- 
ment who did not belong to the Fourth Party, and also of the 
leading men of the Tory tiers état in the provincial towns. 
Very unpretending at the beginning, the movement in a short 
time developed to an extraordinary extent. While departing 
from the lines laid down for it by its founders, the Primrose 
League achieved an unprecedented success, and soon became, 
as we shall see, a most powerful factor in the organization of 
the Tory party. 


EIGHTH CHAPTER 
THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION (continued) 
I 


WHATEVER were the hopes placed in the Primrose League 
by its initiators, the movement was yet in its infancy, and 
their principal resource in the way of organization still re- 
mained the Associations. Encouraging and stimulating, there- 
fore, the democratization of the local Associations which were 
to serve as a lever for the Neo-Toryism, the Fourth Party 
thought that the fulcrum of this lever might be supphed by 
the Council of the “ National Union of Conservative and Con- 
stitutional Associations.” Not in its actual condition, how- 
ever; for it lacked vitality, had no material resources or moral 
authority, and was simply a show institution, a shadow of a 
representative body of Conservative opinion side by side with 
the small coterie of official leaders who wielded real power in 
the party. Immediately_after Lord Beaconsfield’s death, 
before the leadership had been filled up, an attempt was made 
to transfer the supreme authority to the “Council of the 
National Union.” It was proposed that the Council should 
appoint Lord Beaconsfield’s successor to the leadership of the 
party in Parliament. The plan was a bold one, it was equiva- 
lent to forcing a chief for life on the Tory members of both 
Houses from outside. But it fell through, and the peers and 
members elected their respective leaders themselves — Lord 
Salisbury for the Upper House and Sir Stafford Northcote for 
the House of Commons. When the movement of the demo- 
cratic Associations acquired consistency in the country and 
Lord Randolph Churchill’s ascendancy grew more marked, the 
Fourth Party returned to the charge. At its instigation, in the 
annual meeting of delegates of the Associations, held at Bir- 
mingham in 1883, the Conference gave instructions to the Council 

VOL.I—T 273 ; 














274 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [SECOND PART 





of the Union to “ obtain for this body its legitimate share in the 
control of the organization of the party.” Elected President 
on the first renewal of the Council, Lord Randolph Churchill 
demanded the exclusive management of the affairs of the party 
for the Union. The official leaders were called upon to resign. 
They had_their own Organization which, as in the old days on 
fhe Tiberal side, was a development of the office_of Whip — 
that is to say, the Whips and some other members of the party 
appointed for this purpose by the leaders formed a small Cen- 
tral Committee which disposed of the party funds, looked after 
parliamentary candidatures and other matters connected with 
the organization of the party in the country. The Union of 
Associations demanded the dissolution of the Central Commit- 
tee, and the transfer to itself of all the latter’s powers. The 
official leaders, Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote, were 
naturally not much inclined to part with their influence, espe- 
cially in favour of the Fourth Party, which had seized on the 
Union. They negotiated; and, while declaring their readiness 
to enter into the Union’s views, demanded that the Whips 
should be made ew officio members of the Council of the 
Union with the right of voting, but Lord Randolph Churchill 
insisted on the Council being a strictly representative body. 
The Marquis of Salisbury at last broke off the negoti- 
ations rather abruptly. He gave the Union notice to quit 
the rooms which it was occupying in the office of the head- 
quarters of the party, and intimated that the leaders de- 
clined all further responsibility for the acts of the Union. 
Lord Randolph replied to the Marquis in a very deter- 
mined letter, for which he obtained the approval of a ma- 
jority of the Council, and in which he reproached him with 
wishing that “the Council of the Union should be completely 
and permanently reduced to its old position of dependence on 
and servility towards certain irresponsible persons who found 
favour in his [Lord Salisbury’s] eyes.” “It is quite clear to 
us,” remarked Lord Randolph, “that in the letters we have 
from time to time addressed to you, and in the conversations 
which we have had the honour of holding with you on this 
subject, we have hopelessly failed to convey to your mind 
anything like an appreciation either of the significance of the 
movement which the National Union commenced at Birming- 








EIGHTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 275 





ham in October last, or of the unfortunate effect which a neg- 
lect or repression of that movement by the leaders of the party 
would have upon the Conservative cause. The resolution at 
the Conference at Birmingham ... signified that the old 
methods of party organization, namely, the control of parlia- 
mentary elections by the leader, the Whips, the paid agents 
drawing their resources from secret funds, which were suit- 
able to the manipulation of the ten-pound householder, were 
utterly obsolete, and would not secure the confidence of the 
masses of the people who were enfranchised by Mr. Disraeli’s 
Reform Bill, and that the time had arrived when the centre 
of organizing energy should be an elected, representative, and 
responsible body. The delegates at the Conference were evi- 
dently of opinion that if the principles of the Conservative 
party were to obtain popular support, the organization of the 
party would have to become an imitation, thoroughly real and 
bona fide in its nature, of that popular form of representative 
organization which had contributed so greatly to the triumph 
of the Liberal party in 1880, and which was best known to the 
public by the name of the Birmingham Caucus. The Caucus 
may be, perhaps, a name of evil sound and omen in the ears of 
aristocratic or privileged classes, but it is undeniably the only 
form of political organization which can collect, guide, and con- 
trol for common objects large masses of electors.” Alluding 
to the negotiations which had taken. place, Lord Randolph 
Churchill said: “The Council committed the serious error of 
imagining that your lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote were 
in earnest in wishing to become a real source of usefulness to 
the party. ... The Council has been rudely undeceived.” 
The orthodox Tories were scandalized at this attitude of Lord 
Randolph, and accused him of wishing to make the Union a 
caucus not only in the sense of a representative organization 
but for the purpose of dictating to members of Parliament 
and to local Associations like the Birmingham Caucus. The 
Tory instincts of deference, or, to adopt the language of Lord 
Randolph Churchill, of servility toward the leaders, reasserted 
themselves even among the members of the majority of the 
Council of the Union, and retracing its steps it decided to seek 
a modus vivendi with the leaders. Interpreting this decision 
as a vote of censure on himself, and thinking that he was left 


276 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





in the lurch, Lord Randolph resigned the chairmanship of the 
Council and gave out that he was going abroad foratime. For 
the moment he seemed to have the worst of it, but in reality 
his position was an excellent one; for whatever may have been 
his personal motives, in the eyes of the public he embodied, 
at this particular juncture, the popular principle as against the 
domineering spirit of aristocratic exclusiveness, the very real 
need for a wider basis of party organization which the inter- 
ested adherents of the old “ hole-and-corner ” style of manage- 


ment refused to satisfy. The excitement produced by_ Lord 
Randolph Churchill's yesignation was ver ry_great_in the Tory 


party in general and especially among his admirers, the repre- 
sentatives of popular Toryism in the provinces. The Associa- 
tions of the great_towns set to work at once, their Chairmen 
met in London and drew u ration of principles which 
met in Tongon_and- drew wpa declaration of | Lord Salisbury 
and_ Randolph Churchill, between the traditional leadership 
andthe yoice of the people aspiring to be master of its desti- 
pies-and_at_the same time dispelled the apprehensions that 
the Union might become a tyrannical caucus like the Radical 
machine. The memorandum declared the following to be 
“fundamental principles in any Conservative organization” 
“non-interference on the part of political associations with 
the direction of matters incident to the duties and policy of 
our members in Parliament;” the right of every Association 
to “full independence of action in the management of its local 
political matters”; the necessity of having a “thoroughly 
representative central elective council sitting in London.” 
Pointing out that the National Union presented the outline of 
such a Council, the memorandum demanded that a reorganiza- 
tion of this body on a wider basis, which would make it 
thoroughly representative of the Conservative party in the 
country, should be taken in hand at once. But at the same 
time the authors of the Declaration agreed to admit two repre- 
sentatives of the leaders on the Council, as ex officio members, 
and left the finances of the party, the questions of general 
policy, and the selection of candidates in. cases in which the 
constituencies desired it, entirely in their hands. Lord Salis- 
bury, lowering his tone, consented somewhat ill-humouredly to 
the proposed compromise. Lord Randolph Churchill accepted 









































EIGHTH cHAP.]| THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 277 





it much more enthusiastically,’ and was eventually elected 
Chairman by a unanimous vote. 

This dénoiment was undoubtedly a considerable success for 
the e ‘principle of popular Organization, for 1€ was to this_prin- 
ciple t that Lord Salisbury bowed; it was in its favour that he 
relinquished some of the pretensions of the leadership which 
he had hitherto maintained with uncompromising haughtiness. 
It is not very likely that, as some people thought, it was a 
wish not to divide the Opposition forces in the House and to 
present a united front in the impending conflict with the 
Liberals, which overcame the Marquis of Salisbury’s resist- 
ance, for the influence of the Fourth Party in the House itself 
was extremely slight. Great as was the valour of these doughty 
knights, they were only four in number—no more and no less. 
It was more their position outside Parliament, their popularity 
in the country, the enthusiasm with which Lord Randolph 
Churchill inspired the members of the democratic Organiza- 
tions, which forced Lord Sahsbury’s hand. The domestic 
quarrel which had just ended showed that the Associations 
would have to be reckoned with in the future, although they 
represented only a section of Conservative opinion, and that 
with them a new factor was gaining admittance into the daily 
life of the Tory party. The space assigned to it was still 
limited, as the compromise proposed by the representatives of 
the local Associations themselves proved: in spite of all their 
jealousy of the leaders who were accustomed to exercise auto- 
cratic power, they gave up to the latter a fairly extensive 
sphere of influence of their own free will. Evidently Tory 
society was not yet ripe for democratic self-government, from 
the lowest to the highest rung in the-ladder; the prestige of 
the_aristocratic chiefs was still a power among so many other 
social forces which Tories submitted to_as to those of nature. 
Not making allowances for this state of things, and remem- 
bering only their oath to be revenged on the leaders, Lord 
Randolph Churchill’s colleagues of the Fourth Party were, 
it would appear, highly dissatisfied with the solution given 
to the conflict; they thought that Lord Randolph was wrong 



































1 Cf. the letters written in reply to the memorandum which was submitted 
to them by Lord Salisbury, Sir Stafford Northcote, and Lord Randolph 
Churchill (Times, 19th May, 1884). 


278 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





in not fighting the matter out and in not pinning Lord 
Salisbury to the wall of the democratic organization of the 
party; that he had left them in the lurch, and that, in fact, he 
had “gone over to the other side.” It is quite possible that 
Churchill may have been guided by personal considerations in 
making peace with the aristocratic leaders, and that if he had 
not been in such a hurry to return to the aristocratic fold, he 
might have been able to get more, for people soon come to 
terms with the popular spectre. But the compromise was so 
little of a failure that the adherents of the leaders were burn- 
ing to take their revenge, and at the first annual meeting of 
delegates of the Associations, which took place at Sheffield, 
they gave battle to Lord Randolph Churchill and the demo- 
cratic section. With signal clumsiness they ostentatiously dis- 
played their motto of “loyalty and unity of the Conservative 
party under its recognized leaders.” They were beaten in 
every encounter,’ and the principle of democratic organization 
issued from the struggle more triumphant than ever. With 
the complete local autonomy which the leaders themselves had 
conceded to the Associations, and with an elective and repre- 
sentative central organ,? it was now for them to assert them- 
selves, and even to try and supplant the leaders in the latter’s 
own preserve. Theoretically at least it had beep established 
that the Conservative party was a “self-governing body”; no 
more “natural leaders” of whom Disraeli used to dream, no 
more landlords round whom, according to him, the people 
could always rally. At last one distinct point, clearly visible 
to the naked eye, could be made out through the haze of 
“popular Toryism”: the “popular” character of the Tor 

party was showing itself in the democratic organization which 


it adopted. 














EE 


But was the new Toryism to stop there? Was it enough 
to provide the Tory party with a popular organization to make 
it a popular party ? 

1 Cf. the report of the Conference in the Times, of the 24th July, 1884. 

2 The Council of the Union had only 24 elected members, who added 12 to 
their number. At the Sheffield Conference it was decided that ‘‘ co-optation ”’ 


should be abolished and that all the 36 members of the Council should be 
chosen by the general meeting of delegates. 


EIGHTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 279 





‘When the Tory party set to work to interrogate itself 
directly after the defeat of 1880, it was recognized that hesides 
the reform of organization the party also needed a-new clearly 
defined policy, of a po positive and notmerely negative character, 
a progressive policy capable of solving the rising problems of 
the day. The Tory party, it was said, ought no longer to be 
a party of resistance, but it should acquiesce in and promote 
all the timely reforms for which society is already ripe. This 
is the traditional function of the Liberal party, but true 
Liberalism has no place in the Liberal party as it now exists; 
the organization of this party is in the hands of the Radicals 
and they are not likely to lose control of the “machine.” The 
spirit of true Liberalism is not extinct, but it is a spirit without 
a body. The body of Conservatism exists, but it lacks a soul. 
Would it not be possible to blend the two into one vigorous 
whole and form a constitutional party taking in both Tories 
and Liberals, which would be the champion of liberty and the 
opponent of equality, which would recognize that despotism 
is always despotism whether it is exercised by an individual 
or by amob? It was a programme of enlightened Conserva- 
tism, clearly outlined and logical, which assigned an extremely 
honourable if not a brilliant r6éle to the Tory party. But it 
did not suit the young Tories; they wanted their party to be, 
not the buffer or the safety-valve of the steam engine, but its 
furnace and boiler. And so far as they were concerned, they 
boldly adopted democratic Torwism as theix programme. As 
in the case of Disraeli’s “ popular Toryism,” the question arose 
— What would it consist of, what would be the fruit of the 
union of Toryism and democracy? The town of Liverpool 
conceived the ambition of bringing the new political species 
into the world. “ Birmingham has taken the lead in the coun- 
try of the party aiming at revolutionary changes; in like 
manner the Conservatives of Liverpool aspire to head the 
phalanx of men, who, while sound upon constitutional princi- 
ples, are yet alive to the necessity for such national progress 
as the growing intelligence of the age demands.”! As in the 
home of the Caucus, here, too, it was the municipality, and 
especially the mayor, the author of the passage just quoted, 



































1 “Democratic Toryism,’’ by A. B. Forwood, Contemporary Review, Feb- 
ruary, 1883. 


280 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





who headed the movement. The principles which he pro- 
fessed for himself and on behalf of his political coreligion- 
ists were those of the stereotyped creed of Toryism, — Throne, 
House of Lords, Church and State, unity of the British Empire. 
The Tories of Liverpool met the progress demanded by the 
enlightenment of the age, chiefly by introducing and keeping 
up pleasant relations with the masses. Any one who had 
business with the municipality was received in the most 
amiable way, services were rendered most obligingly on all 
sides, the leading Tories had no objection to taking part 
in popular gatherings, they were “not the least proud,” they 
mingled unaffectedly with the “people,” and did not even 
take offence at the turbulence which it too often exhibited, 
—a natural characteristic of the populace of a great seaport 
town.’ This attitude was all the more successful in winning 
the people’s hearts, because the Whigs of Liverpool were one of 
the most disagreeable types of the species; merchant princes 
of three or four generations, with a positively dynastic. dig- 
nity, stiff, stuck-up, they were cordially detested.? Their polit- 
ical rivals, the Tories, on the other hand, had “ confidence in 
the people,” and the people “reciprocated the sentiment.” 
They urged the “leading citizens” of the great towns to fol- 
low their example, and to make some exertions to meet the 
wish of the workingmen for “common political association ” 
with them. For the experience of the promoters of Tory 
democracy in Liverpool made them believe and assert that 
the ‘“ workingmen are far from sympathizing with the radical 
shibboleth for abolishing class distinctions; nor are they advo- 
cates of the doctrine of equality and fraternity in a republi- 
can sense.” They understood the need of being governed by 
men of a superior stamp, and their only complaint was: “the 
leaders do not come amongst us sufficiently often.” ® 

Lord Randolph Churchill developed the same views with all 
the authority which now attached to his name; on behalf of 





1 Later on when, at Liverpool as well as elsewhere, the Liberal Unionist$ 
joined the Tories, owing to the Liberal split on the Home Rule question in 
1886, they were astonished and even scandalized at the turbulence displayed 
by the lower-class Tory voters at political meetings and at the tolerance 
shown by the leading Conservatives in these circumstances. 

2 Their demeanour got them the nickname of ‘‘ red currant jelly.” 

8 Cf. the article ‘‘ Democratic Teryism’”’ just quoted. 


EIGHTH cHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 281 





the Tory democracy he proclaimed his “ reverence and affection 
for the institutions of the country which the Radicals regard 
with aversion” ;! he would not abate one jot of the political 
inequalities which they enshrined; the House of Lords, for 
instance, was “the nucleus of the Tory party” in his eyes; 
“the existence of the party is inseparable from the existence 
of an hereditary Chamber; as inseparable as the latter is from 
the existence of an hereditary monarchy.”? Without troub- 
ling himself to provide formulas, he repeated after Disraeli: 
“ Rally the people around the Throne, unite the Throne to the 
people, a loyal Throne and a patriotic people—this is our 
policy and this is our creed.”*® “The social progress of the 
people by means of legislative reform in the lines and carried 
under the protection of the (ancient) institutions ... that 
must be the Conservative cry, as opposed to the foolish scream 
for organic change by the Radicals, who waste their time in 
attacking institutions whose destruction would only endanger 
popular freedom.”* This programme of social reform or 
rather these protestations of devotion to the material welfare 
of the masses were interspersed with compliments paid to the 
latter. They had all the virtues, they were the fountain-head 
of political wisdom, their judgment was infallible: “ Vox 
populi, vox Dei—that is only too common;” ‘governments 
will go wrong, parliaments will go wrong, classes will go 
wrong, London society and the Pall Mall clubs always go 
wrong; but the people do not go wrong.”? 


Ill 


Loading the people in this way with attentions, the promot- 
ers of Tory democracy nevertheless refused to concede _to them 
what is the very essence of democracy, viz., . political equality ; 
they withheld it inside the Constitution while granting it out- 
side the Constitution in the form of a democratic organization 

f the_party. There was a contradiction in this which, if it 
might be used as a basis for the particular species of “Tory 




















1 Speech at Birmingham, 16th April, 1884. 

2 “Blijah’s Mantle,” Fortnightly Review, 1883, Vol. 33. 

8 Speech at Birmingham quoted above. 4 Ibid. 
5 Speech at Blackpool, 24th January, 1884. 


282 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





democracy,” not only undermined the foundations of Toryism 
but still more those of Conservatism, of real Conservatism. 
When numbers were proclaimed the sole arbiter, when their 
shifting will was the only guide of the party’s existence, how 
would the party be able not only to keep the “ancient insti- 
tutions ” intact, but to regulate or check the political progress of 
the nation in accordance with the dictates of reason and experi- 
ence, while opposing the reactionary prejudices or unreflecting 
impulses of the mob? how would the party be able to with- 
draw this or that institution, which is to be maintained or 
abolished, from the clamour of the market-place, after having 
made it the seat of all power? Were not the “Tory demo- 
crats”’ unsettling even the theoretical foundations of Con- 
servatism which Disraeli, to whose authority they were con- 
tinually appealing, was anxious to preserve throughout all 
his twists and turnings? Although his popular sympathies 
were far deeper than those of the Churchills, he did not contrast 
the “classes” who always go wrong with the “masses” who 
do not go wrong, he did not offer their nostrils the savour of a 
holocaust of leaders, he did not identify the nation with the 
“people” whose voice is the voice of God, but regarded it, in 
conformity with true Conservative ideas, as a spontaneous 
union of classes placed side by side. Having driven the 
Tory party into the arms of democracy, Disraeli vehemently 
denied the fact, from a remnant of scrupulousness, in order 
to keep up appearances. His would-be successors noisily 
paraded the irregular union of Toryism and democracy. Even 
if, as the “ Tory democrats” asserted, it were intended only 
to make the old home safer, yet they were setting up there in 
the place of Conservatism a new kind of plebiscitary Cesarism 
exercised not by an individual but by a huge syndicate: by 
means of well-adjusted legislation the people will get its panem 
(the circenses will soon follow) and in return will allow the 
Tory party to govern with its Lords, Established Church, and 
landed interest; the Tory party will not assume this mandate 
itself, the aristocratic leaders will not be allowed to invest 
themselves with it, but the people assembled in the gather- 
ings of the party, in the caucuses, will confer it on the men of 
its choice. 

But suppose the people is not satisfied with delivering the 


EIGHTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 283 





mandate, suppose it takes it into its head to alter the tenor 
thereof, can it be prevented from doing so? In demanding a 
Radical revolution in the organization of the party, had not 
the “Tory democrats” themselves declared that “rights of 
property, the Established Church, the House of Lords, nay 
even the Crown, could only be maintained in so far as the peo- 
ple considers them necessary and useful for the preservation 
of liberty?” ! The existence of the Tory party however, being 
bound up with political inequalities, according to the “Tory 
democrats ”’ themselves, how would the latter be able to pre- 
serve them and at the same time retain the favour of the 
masses who are continually being tempted by alluring offers 
coming from the other side? Being powerless to hold the 
balance between these conflicting exigencies, they will have 
nothing but expedients of equilibrists to fall back upon. In 
order not to be beaten by Radical competition, they will part 
with the political inequalities one after another, in the fashion 
inaugurated by Disraeli. This will be their connecting link 
with him. On the opportunist Toryism, of which he was the 
founder, they will have grafted, by means of the Caucus bor- 
rowed from the Radicals and of fervent professions of popular 
faith, the democratic, and, to a certain extent, demagogic 
Toryism, which by the power of sic volo sic jubeo inherent in 
the nature of democracy will sanction every kind of tergiver- 
sation and every change of front with more authority than all 
the arguments of Disraeli. 


LY 


This evolution was not long in coming: it showed itself im- 
mediately in a startling way, in the first political crisis brought 
on by the question of the extension of the suffrage to the rural 
population. This question was before Parliament during the 
whole of 1884, the same year in which democratic Toryism de- 
finitively gained a footing in the country. The Tory leaders, 
who had been so terribly scandalized by the democratic attitude 
of the Neo-Tories, soon adopted it on their own account. Being 
unwilling, for fear of the rural voter, to oppose the actual 
principle of extension of the suffrage in the counties which 


1 “ Conservative Disorganization,’’ quoted above. 


284 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





seemed to them inevitable, they concentrated their resistance 
on the question of the redistribution of seats. As had been the 


case at every preceding electoral reform, t reation of ne 


categories of electors was to be accompanied by a_rearrange- 


ment of the constituencies to amend the old distribution of 
seats which had been settled in_a rather arbitrary way, at 


notin im accordance with the importance of the population. 


the interest of their party, the Tories were very anxious &: nat 
the traditional constituencies, which varied greatly in area and 
P ition, should be preserved, Sat thee ot septal tate 
ences, to as great an exten e, while the Liberals 
wishe in electoral districts carved out in 


a unifonnmanner according tothe population. The Tory 
minority of the House of Commons, supported by the majority 
of the House of Lords, declined to vote for the extension of 
the suffrage before seeing the schedule of new constituencies, 
which would be submitted for their consideration when too 
late. The conflict between the two Houses looked very 
threatening for a moment; but when, in order to terminate 
it, the leaders of both parties agreed to negotiate, the con- 
cessions spontaneously made by the Tory leader threw the 
Liberals into a state alike of jubilation and stupefaction ; 
their rivals unhesitatingly accepted a plan of redistribution 
of seats on an almost arithmetical basis.! 

When the conflict about the redistribution of seats was in 
full swing, the Radical Caucus set all its machinery in motion 
to excite public opinion against the Tories by making the Asso- 
ciations pass angry resolutions, by organizing meetings of pro- 
testation and processions, etc. Lord Salisbury could not find 
words strong enough to denounce this way of settling the dif- 
ferences between the two branches of the legislature. “They 
descend into the streets,” he exclaimed; “they call for pro- 
cessions. They imagine that 30,000 Radicals going to amuse 
themselves in London on a given day expresses the public 
opinion of the country. This is not the way in which a pro- 










































1 A publicist who had occasion to see one of the Liberal negotiators, a lead- 
ing Minister, in privacy on the following day said: ‘‘The Minister’s mood 
will always remain in my memory as a measure of the vast change effected 
by Lord Salisbury’s sudden adoption of the democratic principle’”’ (‘‘ The 
Electoral Future,’’ by Edward R. Russell, Contemporary Review, February, 
1885). . 


EIGHTH CHAP.] THE CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATION 285 





gressive, cultured, and civilized State determines the opinion 
of its citizens. ... They appeal to the streets; they attempt 
legislation by picnic. But that has its dangerous side. There 
is no more hopeless condition in which a popularly governed 
State can be plunged than when its policy is decided by 
demonstrations held in the streets of the metropolis.”! On 
the following day, in Sheffield itself, where these words were 
uttered, at the meeting of the National Union of Conservative 
Associations, was fought the battle between the followers of 
the leaders and the disciples of democratic Toryism. The 
latter, as we have seen, won the day. The Conservative 
organization, in its turn, set its machinery going to retort upon 
the Radical Caucus, and Lord Salisbury hastened to co-operate 
in this campaign of “picnics.” A fortnight after his speech at 
Sheffield he paraded his connection with Randolph Churchill, 
and, appearing on the same platform? with him, before an 
enormous crowd, which had flocked together from “the 
streets,” took democratic Toryism and its boldest champion 
to his bosom. Before long he honoured them with a still 
more emphatic recognition: when a parliamentary surprise 
brought him into power, in 1885, he offered Lord Randolph 
Churchill a leading place in his Cabinet; and to crown his 
attentions to the “Tory democrats,” he sent the illustrious Sir 
Stafford Northcote, whose truly Conservative conduct had a 
knack of exasperating them, to the House of Lords. The Min- 
istry in which Lord Randolph Churchill and his friends took 
their places launched out at once into a policy of State Social- 
ism, so that Mr. Chamberlain was able to say, with some degree 
of truth, that “the Tories were in office, but the Radicals in 
power.” * At the same time, the “Tory democrats” and Lord 
Randolph Churchill kept on proclaiming that Radicalism, 
if it had its way, would plunge England into the abysses of 
demagogism, and they called to the moderate Liberals to come 
over and join them. “It is possible,” replied Lord Harting- 
ton, “that there are some subjects upon which there exists less 
difference of opinion between some members of the Conserva- 


1 Speech of the 22d July, 1884, at Sheffield. 

2 At the great public demonstration of the 9th August, 1884, in the Pomona 
Gardens at Manchester. 

3 Speech of the 31st July, 1885, at Hackney. 


286 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





tive party and myself than between myself and some of the 
more irresponsible and advanced members of my own party. 
But I confess that I still find some difficulty in understand- 
ing what Conservative policy is, and what I am invited to 
come over to help the Conservative party to do.... I am 
obliged to confess, in reply to that invitation addressed to me 
by Lord Randolph Churchill, that in the leaders of the Con- 
servative party I feel no confidence whatever.” 1 The moder- 
ate Liberals, who were swamped by the Radicals, and were 
asking themselves in despair if the moment had not come to 
shake the dust off their feet, were bound to ponder Lord Har- 
tington’s words. The same wind, in fact, was blowing from the 
Tory side as on the heights of Radicalism: it was tearing the 
leaves from the old trees, and by sweeping along their trunks 
was dooming them to speedy destruction. And gas a climax, 
in the large gaps which were already appearing at intervals on 
Tory ground, the Caucus was seen to rise, — the same Caucus 
which had done so much to make the position of the moderates 
in the old abode of Liberalism untenable. If they were to go 
over to the other side, would they not be exchanging Charybdis 
for ScyNa? <A thunder-clap which burst in the political sky 
suddenly relieved them from the perplexity in which they 
were plunged. This was the crisis brought on by the question 
of Home Rule for Ireland. 


1 Speech of the 10th October, 1885, at Rawtenstall. 


























NINTH CHAPTER 


THE CRISIS OF 1886 AND THE FINAL DEVELOPMENT OF 
PARTY ORGANIZATION 


I 


TRELAND, which had long been like a thorn planted in the body 
politic of England, had at last worked its way into the heart of 
her parliamentary system. The representatives of irreconcil- 
able Irish opinion had gradually become so numerous in the 
House of Commons that they stopped the regular working of 
the old party system by interposing between the two parties, or 
even paralyzed the activity of Parliament by their systematic 
obstruction. The price which they demanded was Home Rule, 
the political autonomy of their country. But nearly the whole 
of English opinion and English statesmen, Conservative and 
Liberal, would not hear of it. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, at the 
general election of 1885 asked the country to return a Liberal 
majority strong.enough to deal with the Conservatives and the 
Irish together, and thus make the latter powerless. This wish 
was not gratified; the Irish Home Rulers came back in greater 
numbers than ever, and it was only by the aid of their votes that 
the Liberals would be able to overcome the Conservatives and 
dislodge them from power, which they had held for some time. 
Mr. Gladstone then took a sudden resolution in which, as was 
always the case with him, the calculations of a parliamentary 
tactician and of a party impresario coincided with the impulses 
of a generous nature and the aspirations of a lofty mind: he 
decided to offer the Irish Home Rule in order to secure a 
majority and put an end to the enmity between the two nations. 
But would he be followed in this abrupt change of front? 
Would his great authority and the wonderful prestige of his 
name be strong enough to carry with him the whole body of 

287 


288 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





those who up to this point followed him inside and outside 
Parliament ? 

The vague rumours as to Mr. Gladstone’s plans which began 
to circulate directly after the elections were quite enough to 
produce such a deep impression in the Liberal camp that a 
split seemed inevitable. The Conservative Ministry, which 
had not obtained a majority at the elections, was placed in a 
minority in the House on the first opportunity, and Mr. Glad- 
stone was entrusted with the task of forming the new Adminis- 
tration. The moderates, the Whigs, declined for the first time 
to join it; Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen, Sir Henry James, 
all refused to take office; they had a presentiment that the 
time was drawing near when they would be obliged rather 
to cut themselves adrift.’ In fact, directly Mr. Gladstone pro- 
duced his Home Rule scheme the moderate Liberals, led by 
Lord Hartington, parted company with him. In face of what 
they considered as endangering the unity of the Empire and 
the very foundation of the English constitutional system, they 
no longer hesitated to combine with the Conservatives against 
the man who had been the great representative of Liberalism, 
but who, in their eyes, had become simply the leader of a de- 


ee type of Radicalism. The situation seco strangely 
owing t at_Mr. s_ unable 


to iobta the unanimous approval] of his own Ministers for his 
new Irish policy. In spite of their proved Radicalism, two of 
‘them, of whom Mr. Chamberlain was one, taking up.a purely 
Imperial standpoint, preferred to forego power rather than co- 
operate in a measure which, in their opinion, made for the 
disintegration of the Empire. Mr. Gladstone then had to face 
a resistance within his own party which was all the more for- 
midable because he could not set up the will of the electorate 
against it to justify the granting of Home Rule, for the ques- 
tion was not laid before the constituencies. An appeal was 
now to be made after the event to Liberal opinion, but the 
latter was for the most part identified with the caucuses which 
acknowledged and obeyed the leadership of Mr. Chamberlain. 
The party Organization which had been constructed with so 








1 The caucus of the town which Sir H. James represented construed this 
refusal as an act of ‘‘insubordination’’ against Mr. Gladstone and passed a 
severe censure on the member who declined to take office. 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 289 





much labour was about to undergo a terrible ordeal. Was it 
to forsake the man who had, so to speak, called it into exist- 
ence, and who was the most authoritative representative of the 
democratic Radicalism to which it appealed; or was it to follow 
the old chief of the Liberal party in his struggle for a measure 
which was in the strict logic of Radicalism? If it revolted 
against Mr. Chamberlain, would it not run the risk of shatter- 
ing its fabric, by causing a split in its own ranks? If, on 
the other hand, it took sides against Mr. Gladstone, would it 
not -be exposed to the same danger? Or, to put the question 
in another way, would the authority of the illustrious states- 
man be strong enough to deprive the Caucus of its followers ? 
would the traditional leadership embodied in Mr. Gladstone pre- 
vail against the representative Organization which was intro- 
duced on the pretext of destroying the power of the leaders, 
however great and influential they might be? Thus side by 
side with questions of persons and of circumstances, the funda- 
mental problem of the Organization itself was being debated. 
On the eve of the Home Rule debate in the House of Com- 
mons the Liberal Federation Committee requested all the affili- 
ated Associations to consider the question and to forward it 
the resolutions which they might adopt, after which a general 
meeting of delegates was to decide on the Bill on behalf of 
the Liberal party. Opinion was much divided in the Associa- 
tions; the members had or still wished to have confidence in 
Mr. Gladstone, but on the subject of Home Rule there was a 
good deal of wavering and irresolution which Mr. Chamber- 
lain’s resistance by no means helped to dispel. The perplexity © 
of the Associations was further enhanced by the fact that the 
Federation, realizing the division of opinion, confined itself 
on this occasion, contrary to its usual practice, to a simple 
statement of the problem without suggesting to the local Asso- 
ciations what answer should be given. Left to their own in- 
spiration, the Associations for the most part did not know 
what line to take. They who were supposed to have the power 
of giving expression to public opinion and of pointing out the 
_ policy to be pursued by their rulers, could do nothing but 
stammer. ‘True, they voted resolutions, and lengthy ones, but 
without giving a plain answer: Yes or No, for or against the 
Home Rule Bill. And it was left to Mr. Chamberlain to utter 


VOL, L-=U 


290 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srEconp parr 





the feeling cry: “Why are you here? Why are you formed ? 
Why do you remain an Association for Birmingham?” ! After 
having been drilled into being only a claque, it was no easy 
matter for them to blossom suddenly into art critics. 


II 


While in Parliament preparations were being made for the 
great battle between those who had followed Mr. Gladstone’s 
example in becoming converts to Home Rule and those who ad- 
hered to the old views of the Liberal party on the Irish ques- 
tion, the country was in a state of suppressed agitation. Mr. 
Gladstone’s mighty voice was making its way into the national 
conscience, and in face of the Gladstonian flood which began 
to rise in the Associations, a good many of their members 
withdrew from them or were ready to go. in the midst of 
all this the delegates of the Liberal Associations met in London 
and there, at the Westminster Palace Hotel, was fought the 
first battle between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain. The 
encounter was a desperate one, and ended disastrously for Mr. 
Chamberlain and his friends. The veneration with which Mr. 
Gladstone was regarded, the belief which had taken root among 
his admirers that he could not do wrong or swerve from the 
right path, the divergence of opinions on the merits of the 
question of Home Rule, were reinforced by all the animosity, 
jealousy, and rancour which had gathered round the Birming- 
ham set during the period of their omnipotence. As was re- 
marked above, they had not been able or willing to spare the 
amour-propre of the other towns; they were too prone to dis- 
play dictatorial tendencies, and by means of the Federation 
which they had called into being, they established the suprem- 
acy of Birmingham over the provinces. The pride of the other 
great towns, however, was hurt; they were always jealous of 
each other, and in a fashion which had no resemblance to the 
feeling which made the cities of Greece contend for the honour 
of being the birthplace of Homer. Being all of recent origin 
and prosperity, all parvenus, they possessed the dignity and the 
aspirations peculiar to parvenus. To cut out their neighbours, 


1 Speech of Mr. J. Chamberlain to the Birmingham Association, Times, 22d 
April, 1886. 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 291 





if only by the dimensions of their town hall, was the aim and 
object of every one of them. Birmingham, therefore, had po- 
litical rivals. At one of these — Leeds — important meetings of 
delegates of the Liberal Associations were occasionally held, 
but this was not much of aconsolation. When Mr. Chamberlain 
refused to countenance the new Irish policy of the great leader 
of the party, the rivals of Birmingham felt that the Lord had 
delivered it into their hands. At the general meeting of 
delegates convened to give their verdict on Home Rule, the 
Leeds contingent opened fire. They roundly declared Mr. 
Chamberlain a traitor to the Liberal cause, although it was not 
yet known which side the bulk of the Liberal party would take, 
the Irish question being still in suspense. In vain did the 
officers of the Federation, who were Birmingham men, pro- 
pose by way of compromise a resolution accepting the prin- 
ciple of Home Rule for Ireland, but urging Mr. Gladstone not 
to insist on the exclusion of the Irish representatives from the 
House of Commons, an.exclusion which in the eyes of a good 
many Liberals denoted a complete separation of the two coun- 
tries. The Chairman of the meeting, a Leeds man, refused to 
put this resolution, which had been drafted by the officers of 
the Federation Committee, and declared purely and simply, 
without reserve or exception, for Mr. Gladstone’s plan. A 
heated debate ensued; the Birmingham party was worsted, 
and the Caucus pronounced for Mr. Gladstone by a very large 
majority. The consequences of this rupture were, as we shall 
see, of decisive importance for the future of the Organization 
and of the Liberal party. 

As soon as the word of command had been issued from above, 
the local Associations threw aside all their doubt and hesitation 
and plunged into the fray with their usual ardour. The resolu- 
tions which they now voted had nothing ambiguous about them. 
They called on their members to support Mr. Gladstone’s Bill 
in its entirety. When letters and telegrams did not attain 
their object, delegations from the caucuses came up to London 
to ply their representatives with arguments ad hominem, and the 
lobbies of the House were the scene of a very active campaign 
on these lines. The unanimity and enthusiastic energy dis- 
played by the caucuses made, as it would appear, an impression 
specially on Mr. Gladstone. He inferred that the whole Lib- 


292 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srEconp part 





eral strength of theountry was with him and that all he had 
to do was to overcome the resistance of the members who had 
been led away by Lord Hartington, John Bright, and Mr. Cham- 
berlain. In the meanwhile the second reading of the Bill and 
the division were delayed in an unusual way. Lord Hartington 
maintained that the Government was adopting these dilatory 
tactics in order to give the caucuses time to carry out their con- 
versions among the members opposed to the Bill. Mr. Glad- 
stone emphatically repudiated this charge. However this may 
have been, the caucuses managed to convert a certain number 
of Members, but not enough to ensure the success of the Home 
Rule Bill. Many Liberal Members remained deaf to the re- 
monstrances and threats of the caucuses, They voted with the 
Conservatives and threw out the Irish Bill. Mr. Gladstone 
would not accept his defeat, and dissolved Parhament in order 
to appeal to the country. 

The rejection of the Home Rule Bill in the House of Com- 
mons, by separating the Gladstonian Liberals once and for all 
from the Liberal Unionists, completed_the dismemberment of 
the Liberal Associations which had begun when the crisis broke 
out. Several of them lost their Chairmen or Secretaries, who 
“Tid not want to be borne away by the current which was driv- 
ing all the caucuses in the direction of Home Rule. The 
vacancies caused by these resignations were quickly filled, and 
the Organization drew up in battle array with a united front. 
Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, who had already withdrawn 
from the Federation after their defeat at the Westminster 
Palace Hotel, hurriedly started a new Organization to conduct 
the impending electoral campaign, entitled the “ Radical Union,” 
with its headquarters at Birmingham and a certain number of 
branches in the country. It adopted as its programme the 
single question of local government, which it proposed to ex- 
tend on a very large scale to every part of the Kingdom, not 
excepting Ireland, which would thus enjoy exactly the same 
amount of autonomy as England, Scotland, and Wales. ‘The 
Caucus Organization, which was left in the hands of the Glad- 
stonians, refused to follow it on to this ground; in taking up 
the cudgels for Home Rule it held, and _in this it was backed 
by the parliamentary chiefs of the Gladstonian_ party, that 
the divergence brought about by this problem was a general 






































“yinTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 298 





test of Liberalism; in other words, that Jf was not a differ. 


ence of opinion between Liberals which the country was asked 
to decide upon, but a conflict between Liberals and men who 
were no longer such. In so doing the Caucus at one blow 
drove out of the party all the Liberal Unionists, led by such 
men as John Bright, Joseph Chamberlain, Leonard Courtney, 
etc. In refusing to recognize them as Liberal belligerents, the 
Caucus treated the Liberal members who had voted against 
Home Rule more as rebels. The Associations condemned them 
beforehand without allowing them to come to an explanation 
with their constituents, whose business it now was to give the 
verdict, or they sent them imperious summonses to appear be- 
fore the Caucus.'!. The mere fact of appealing to the voters over 
the heads of the caucuses was viewed by the latter as an act of 
high treason against Liberalism. Their great a 

miration for Mr. Gladstone made them forget that _he himself 


was defending a cause and not his own person or his power; and 


making Mr. Gladstone’s glorious name a sort of shibboleth, ‘they 
converted the great national deliberation in which the countr 

was invited to take part into a personal See ee 
of warfare, the character of the campaign, could not help being 
influenced by this, contests conducted on personal lines being 
always marked by a greater display of acrimony and intoler- 
ance against the opposing side. The policy pursued by the 
caucuses drew the following remarks from John Bright: “The 
action of our clubs and associations is rapidly engaged in mak- 
_ ing delegates of their members, and in insisting on their forget- 
ting all principles if the interests of a party are supposed to be 
at stake. What will be the value of party when its whole 
power is placed at the disposal of a leader from whose authority 
no appeal is allowed ?”? It was only too natural that counsels 
of moderation and appeals to tolerance should not be listened 
to in the thick of the fight. Having, so to speak, taken the 
bit between their teeth, the caucuses were bent on one thing, 























1 A Radical veteran, Peter Rylands, who had voted against the Home Rule 
Bill, was summoned on the following day to appear before the Association 
within forty-eight hours. Afterwards the Caucus thought better of it and 
graciously allowed the member up to the end of the parliamentary session 
(which was drawing to a close). 

2 Letter to Mr. Caine, Times, 24th June, 1886. 


294 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp Parr 





to overthrow and {rample on every one that crossed their path. 
The Liberal Unionists were not always able to argue their case ; 
on more than one occasion they were not allowed a hearing in 
electoral gatherings, their voice was drowned by the clamour 
of packed meetings. The caucuses therefore gave the Liberal 
Unionists a plausible reason for exclaiming against the tyranny 
of: official Liberalism and for saying with Mr. Goschen that 
“they were fighting for the right of private judgment and the 
right of independent action.” ? 


The final result of the elections was unfavourable to M. : 


ston resigned ce, without waitin 
for the meeting of Parliament. The victory of the Conserva- 
tive and Liberal Unionist coalition was in fact complete. A 
large number of Liberals voted against Mr. Gladstone, and a 
still greater number of old adherents of the Liberal leader 
abstained from voting, and in so doing greatly helped to turn 
the scale in favour of the opponents of Home Rule. This re- 
sult showed only too clearly that the Caucus was far from rep- 
resenting the opinions of the bulk of English Liberalism, as the 
Chairman of the executive committee of the Federation had the 
good grace to admit by saying, after the event, it is true, that 
“the enthusiasm for Mr. Gladstone and his measure in the 
Associations was in reality not a correct reflex of the attitude 
of the whole mass of the party.”? The Caucus Associations 
therefore misled Mr. Gladstone, confirmed him in his attitude 
by their noisy demonstrations, and made him pull the string so 
tight that it snapped asunder. 

Nevertheless Mr. Gladstone showed his appreciation of the 
services rendered by the Caucus in the campaign which had 
just terminated. On leaving office, he made the President of 
the Caucus a baronet and conferred a knighthood on the Chair- 
man of the executive committee of the Liberal Federation. In 
so doing he was more just than the bulk of the party, who, in 
trying to discover the reasons of their defeat, attributed it to 
the inadequate arrangements of the Caucus: it had been thrown 
out of gear by the split and had not done what was expected 








1 Times, 7th July, 1886. 

2 Letter from Sir B. Walter Foster in the New Liberal Programme edited 
by Andr. Reid, Lond. 1886, a collection of opinions on the causes of the Liberal 
defeat in 1886 and on the new policy to be adopted. 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 295 





of it. The contrary was nearer the truth. Although i 
certain number of distinguished members, the Caucus had 
all the machinery of organization, an was_just as_im- 
portant, the head machinist, Mr. Schnadhorst, the only one of 
the Birmingham group who went over to the nine side, All 
the threads of the Organization being in his hands, the machine 
worked on without a moment’s interruption. In the same way 
the local Associations, which were now Gladstonian, kept all 
the books, the lists, the funds, and, above all, most of the agents 
who were used to manipulating the constituencies. The ma- 
jority of the leading people, the men of wealth and culture, 
and, generally speaking, most of the “influences,” having left 
the Gladstonians, the voters who had voted for Mr. Gladstone 
and Home Rule belonged to the masses r 
middle class, many of whom were brought to the poll by the 
exertions of the Caucus. And these exertions were so far from 
being of no-avail that in the English boroughs, for instance, 
where the Gladstonian candidates suffered most, their minori- 
ties were more than respectable. Next to the magic of Mr. 
Gladstone’s name, the Caucus was undoubtedly the most power- 
ful influence, and it would be by no means rash to affirm that 
without the support of the Caucus the defeat of the Gladsto- 
nians would have been an utter rout. 



























VE 


If the assistance rendered by the Caucus was very useful 
to the Gladstonians, it must be admitted that from the 
point of view of the Organization the Caucus was very well 
advised in taking Mr. Gladstone’s side. It may be that, as 
was generally supposed, Mr. Chamberlain, in parting from 
Mr. Gladstone, hoped to have the last word, thanks, among 
other things, to the Caucus, of which he was the master and 
the guiding spirit. If this was so, the calculation was a mis- 
taken one. The Caucus had been called into being on behalf 
of the sovereignty of the people; it was based on the formal ap- 
plication of the principle of local autonomy ; and its machinery 
was kept going not,so much by sober-minded persons, as by the 
enthusiasm and political ardour which naturally follow the direct 


296 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





lines of political thought. The solution of the Irish problem put 
forward by Mr. Gladstone, combining as it did all these logical 
and psychological elements, exactly suited the intellectual and 
political temperament of the contingents of the Caucus, and if 
the latter had tried to force them in an opposite direction, it 
would have broken its mainspring. The result would have 
been such a dismemberment, not only of its staff (which 
actually did take place), but of the rank and file, as to break 
it up, reduce it to the level of an organization of a Liberal frac- 
tion (as was the case with the Organizations started by the 
Liberals opposed to Home Rule), and prevent it from keeping 
up even the appearance of being a more or less complete repre- 
sentative of the party. Mr. Gladstone being still the official 
chief of the Liberal party, the head of orthodox Liberalism, the 
Caucus was able to preserve this appearance by following in his 
wake, In so doing it also escaped the danger of having its rep- 
resentative authority contested by that of the supreme leader, 
of the anointed of the party. If things had reached this point, 
’ the old political factor of the leadership which the Caucus had 
taken on itself to supplant, but which was still a living force 
in English life, would have risen up against it with a power 
all the more formidable, because on this occasion the leader 
appeared as a Radical champion. On the other hand, by walk- 
ing in the footsteps of the great chief, the Caucus was strength- 
ened with all his strength and enhanced by all his importance. 

Whether all the consequences involved in the decision taken 
by the Federation were clearly realized or not, its immediate 
and personal effect was easily grasped, viz. the deposition of 
the powerful master of the Caucus. The defeat inflicted on 
Mr. Chamberlain at the Westminster Palace Hotel was hailed 
with delight by many Liberals. They held that the Fede*ation 
had rescued the freedom of the Liberal Organization which 
was in the hands of a single man, and more than this, that 
the democracy of England had won its spurs on this occa- 
sion. The rising generation in particular was infected by 
these views. Having arrived at the age of discretion under 
Lord Beaconsfield’s government, its political opinions were 
formed under the special influence of that period. The un- 
expected return of the Tories to power with an enormous 
majority after a long Liberal reign which seemed destined 




















NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 297 





to last indefinitely, had affected people’s imaginations, and 
with the exaggeration of language peculiar to party polemics, 
Beaconsfield was represented as a sort of political Anti- 
christ, and the Liberal victory of 1880 as a victory over 
the forces of darkness.'' The political ardour which young 
Liberals imbibed under these circumstances was marked not 
so much by a rationalist enthusiasm, like that which grew up 
in the latter years of the Palmerston epoch, as by a jealous 
and irritable belief. The attacks which were being made by 
the Tories on Mr. Chamberlain and the Caucus, which they 
liked to describe as a tool of an ambitious and unscrupulous 
politician, gave a painful shock to the minds of youthful 
Radicals and inspired them with grave suspicions. The spec- 
tacle of Members of unquestioned Radicalism swelling Mr. 
Chamberlain’s train, and of Liberal Associations at his beck 
and call, filled many young men with apprehensions as to the 
destiny of the English democracy, not yet arrived at maturit9, 
but with the springs of its existence already poisoned. Conse- 
quently when Mr. Chamberlain was thrown over by the Feder- 
ation, they thought that the English democracy had recovered 
itself, and that the Caucus, in its odious aspect, was a thing 
of the past. The young, ardent democrats, moreover, were not 
alone in attaching this importance to the crisis which the Fed- 
eration had just gone through. There were still a certain 
number of Associations in the country which held aloof from 
the Birmingham Federation and had refused to join it, for 
fear of losing their independence. Mr. Chamberlain’s fall 
overcame their scruples, and, one after another, they gave in 
their adhesion. 

T@xemove all the apprehensions of the local Associations, 
the Federation hastened to modify its statutes in a decentraliz- 
ing direction. In the Council of the Federation they were 
given a representation proportioned to the number of voters, 
and in the general committee three delegates to each Associa- 
tion whatever its importance, just as in the federative republics, 














1 Edward Freeman, the historian, for instance, actually compared the elec- 
tions of 1880, which brought Mr. Gladstone into power in place of Disraeli, 
to the conquest of Magna Charta, and, alluding to Beaconsfield’s foreign 
policy, added that the advent of the Liberals would be a source of joy ‘‘ wher- 
ever the name of Christ is named in the lands where the misbeliever still holds 
the Christian as his bondsman”’ (Contemporary Review, 1880, Vol. 37). 


298 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconn part 





in the United States, or in Switzerland, the States or Cantons 
are represented in proportion to their population in the lower 
chamber, whereas in the other branch of the federal Legislature 
they all have the same number of representatives. The new 
statutes of the Caucus also allowed the creation of District 
federations with representatives in the central bodies of the 
Organization. But the most important point, the point most 
pregnant with consequences, of the constitutional revision 
adopted by the Caucus, was the transfer of its head office. It 
was impossible to stay at Birmingham, for Mr. Chamberlain’s 
influence was still all-powerful there; and the Federation was 
now, so to speak, in the middle of a hostile camp. It being 
necessary to move somewhere else, Leeds was proposed as head- 
quarters; but the Leeds politicians, who had done all they could 
to overthrow Mr. Chamberlain, declined the offer, being afraid 
of inspiring the great provincial centres with the jealousy which 
had caused the downfall of Birmingham.’ Thereupon London 
was clearly marked out as the home of the Liberal Organiza- 
tion. Installed in the capital of the Empire, the Federation 
at once rose in public estimation. Divested of its provincial 
origin, which was a drawback to it in spite of all the influence 
which it.wielded in the Birmingham period of its existence, it 
now shed its rays over the whole country from the centre of 
political life. The dream of its founders to make it a Liberal 
Parliament side by side with the Imperial Legislature was real- 
ized in a material sense now that it had its offices in Parlia- 
ment Street. The popular association of ideas which magnifies 
and exalts all that_goes on in the capital, even in countries 
which are not highly centralized, forthwith clothed the_Fed- 
eration with a new authority. This authority was speedily 
enhanced, and to as great _an extent, by the fact tha 
eration became the regular organ of the chiefs of the party, 
with Mr. Gladstone at their head. “Aebe-alliance of the popular 
Organization with the leadership, contracted during the elec- 
toral crisis of 1886, was thus placed on a permanent footing, 
and_its effect, as analyzed above, only became more striking ~ 
and more fruitful in consequences for the Federation. It could 
no longer be said that it obeyed the inspirations fons of a single 




















q 





































1‘ We did not care to make fools of ourselves,’’ as was said afterwards by 
one of the Leeds men who led the attack at the Westminster Palace Hotel. 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 299 





man, that it ministered exclusively to his interests, as Mr. 
Chamberlain’s victorious adversaries retrospectively, but per- 
haps somewhat tardily, made out.'. It was now supposed to 
unite all the elements of Liberalism, to be, as it were, its 
visible, catholic, universal church. The poor young men who 
in the innocence of their hearts rejoiced over Mr. Chamber- 
lain’s fall as betokening the end of the Caucus had no idea that 
its power was only beginning. 

Nor did the commotion created in the local Associations by 
the Home Rule crisis prove disadvantageous to them. True, 
they had lost some members, whose importance was due not 
so much to their number as to their position, their wealth, and 
their influence in the locality. Respectable people as they were 
for the most part, their respectability was of use to the Asso- 
ciations which they had joined out of party loyalty; they went 
bail, so to speak, in the popular Organizations for the too impul- 
sive and noisy elements, not to mention the more or less large 
subscriptions which their means enabled them to contribute. 
Their departure was no doubt a serious blow to the Liberal 
Associations. But their respectability was not infrequently 
accompanied by the haughtiness and arrogance with which a cer- 
tain class of Whigs treated people of small means or low birth. 
In this respect, therefore, the retirement of these personages 
from the Liberal Associations was more a gain than a loss to 
the latter; their moral atmosphere was decidedly cleared by it. 
Then, the presence of the moderates in the Associations having 
acted as a check and a counterpoise, or, as the ardent spirits of 
the Caucus termed it, as an impediment, an obstacle to the 
advance of the party in the path of progress, their departure 
had the effect of removing the friction between the moderate 
and the Radical element and of enhancing the propelling force 
of the latter by bringing more cohesion into the ranks of the 
Caucus, by introducing greater unity of views and aspirations 
among its members, for a while at least, until the inevitable 
growth of conflicting opinions and feelings would once more give 
birth to a group of “ reactionaries.” In the meanwhile the cau- 


1 “They had no longer a one-man society. ... Attempts were made to use 
that Organization for the purposes of one man”... (Speech of the Presi- 
dent of the Caucus, Sir James Kitson, at the annual meeting of the Federa- 
tion, Oct. 18, 1887). 


300 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp part 





cuses obtained more elbow-room. Just as great a mistake was 
therefore made by those who, at the opposite political pole 
to the “stalwarts” and to the rising generation which hailed 
Mr. Chamberlain’s fall as the fall of the Caucus, held with 
Mr. Goldwin Smith that the retirement of the men who lent 
respectability to the Caucus had dealt this “political devil- 
fish” a fatal blow.’ The real upshot was that the circum- 
stances which had the appearance of weakening the Caucus — 
the separation from its creator and prompter, Mr. Chamberlain, 
the compulsory desertion of its stronghold at Birmingham, the 
loss of many of its important members —all conspired, on 
the contrary, to enhance its power and extend its influence. 


IV 


But the very incidents which contributed to this result soon 
thrust new duties upon the Organization, and imposed on it 
new obligations. The first marked effect of the altered situ- 
ation appeared in the relations of the Organization with the 
party chiefs. Being indebted for its accession of prestige to its 
closer connection with the parliamentary leaders of the party, 
it speedily fell under their direct influence. These leaders — 
it is enough to mention a single name, that of Mr. Gladstone 
—held too exalted a position for the representatives of the 
Caucus, who, after all, were unimportant people, to be able, 
when brought into continual contact with them, to resist them 
and take up an independent, let alone a divergent, attitude in 
regard to the common cause, of which the parliamentary chiefs 
of the party were the devoted and indefatigable champions. 
This state of things, which grew up after the transfer of the 
headquarters of the Caucus to London, was not altogether 
unforeseen. When the Federation was obliged to move from 
Birmingham, after the disastrous general election of 1886, 
the proposal to transport the Organization to London met with 
opposition among its members for the very reason that the 
independence of the popular Organization might be exposed 
to danger. Without actually pointing out the leaders of the 

1“ The Caucus has lost most of the men who lent it respectability, and we 


may hope that this political devil-fish has received a severe wound ”’ (‘‘ Elec- 
tion Notes,’ Macmillan’s Magazine, August, 1886). 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 301 





party, — which no one would have ventured to do, — fears were 
expressed that the official atmosphere of the capital would 
rob the Organization of the popular spirit which animated or 
ought to animate it; cut off from the provincial centres, it 
would no longer be able to interpret their political views with 
ease and accuracy. Mr. John Morley (who at that time was 
not connected with Liberal official circles by the close ties since 
formed in the course of years of common struggles) dwelt 
with much force on these considerations, but they were dis- 
regarded. The anxiety to uphold the independence of the 
Organization as opposed to the official leaders of the party was 
also very great among the managers of the Caucus who had 
joined the Gladstonians, and they came up to London with 
the firm intention of keeping as much as possible aloof from 
these leaders. But they were very soon caught in the official 
toils. 

One special fact contributed greatly to this result. It will 
be remembered that long before the creation of the Caucus the 
Liberals had a central office managed by the Whips (the Cen- 
tral Liberal Association). The Whip himself was only an 
agent of the leader of the party; the Organization which he 
controlled had no policy of its own, it obeyed that of the party 
chief. The Central Association, therefore, although it had a 
long Whig past, followed Mr. Gladstone in the Home Rule 
campaign of 1886, but without making a great impression or 
achieving much success. Being gradually driven back by the 
rising tide of the popular Organization of Birmingham, the 
Association which represented the leaders lost its vitality and 
energy with the ground which was slipping from beneath its 
feet. After the defeat of 1886, the leaders of the Liberal 
party wanted to bring some fresh blood into it, and considered 
this all the more feasible because it was now as Radical as 
the representative Organization. They thought of Mr. Schnad- 
horst as the man to conduct this delicate operation. But he 
preferred to remain at the head of the Caucus, especially as its 
headquarters were about to be transferred to London, where a 
fresh era of activity awaited him. Being unable to entice away 
the skilful organizer, the leaders discovered another means of 
obtaining his services: as he was taking up his abode in London 
on behalf of the Caucus, why should he not, while continuing 


302 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp part 





to look after it, keep an eye on their Organization, which was 
close by. Mr. Schnadhorst yielded to these entreaties and 
accepted the title of Honorary Secretary to the Central Liberal 
Association, that is, he added it to his office of secretary.of the 
National Liberal Federation. As sole manager of both Organi- 
zations, he became their maid-of-all-work: as secretary of the 
Central office, he was the factotum of the leaders; as secretary 
of the Caucus, he was the servant of the popular Organizations. 
The field of action of both being the same, a fusion of the two 
Organizations practically took place. 

Of course the influence of the official leaders on the affairs 
of the Federation was brought into play behind the scenes 
so to speak, but it was none the less real. The Caucus con- 
tinued to hold its Grand Assizes coram populo; thousands of 
delegates representing all the constituencies in the country 
flocked to these meetings; but the proceedings were arranged 
beforehand down to the minutest details. The items of the 
programme, measures or demands to be submitted to the Leg- 
islature, resolutions approving or censuring the policy of the 
day, were discussed and drafted in private by the leaders 
of the party and the managers of the Caucus. The list of 
business of the Federation meetings being fixed by them 
beforehand down to the names of the speakers, independent 
utterances had great difficulty in obtaining a hearing. In 
the first place, the mere proposal of a motion not anticipated 
or eliminated by the authorities was a piece of courage or 
audacity on the part of a small provincial delegate. In the 
hall which was still resounding with the loud cheers evoked 
by the appearance of Mr. Gladstone, where he was going to 
speak or had spoken, where the accents of his magic voice was 
still vibrating in every ear and in every heart, how was a hum- 
ble delegate to rise and oppose the persons who surrounded 
Mr. Gladstone on the platform and whom he addressed as his 
dear friends, whom he described as the pillars of Liberalism, 
of the great cause for which they were doing battle? And if 
any one had the hardihood to do it, the President was there 
ready to rule the delegate’s motion or amendment “out of 
order” without further ado, and to refuse him a hearing, 
while making up for this treatment by retrospective denun- 
ciations of the unholy dictatorship which Mr. Chamberlain 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 303 





wielded over the Federation before it had regained its free- 
dom in the crisis of 1886. 
No great amount of perspicacity was required to perceive 
that ynder these circumstances the Federation had become a 
quasi-aficial institution, that it represented on only official Liber- 


alism, that of the regular leaders, and in no way the aspirations 
of the masses, The managers of the Caucus took offence at 


remarks which began to be made on this point and protested 
vehemently against all imputation of officialism. “The Feder- 
ation,” they declared, “embodies and expresses the profound 
and unshaken loyalty of the Liberal party to its great chief, 
and the confidence felt in his colleagues. At the same time 
the Federation has never been, and if it be consistent with the 
principles upon which it was established can never become, a 
merely official organization. It receives its inspiration from 
the people.”! The authors of these words were so impressed 
with them that they took them for a motto, which they repro- 
duced on the first page of their annual reports. A good many 
influential representatives of local Associations, however, promi- 
nent members of the central committee of the Caucus, were 
not so profoundly convinced of the absolute independence of 
the Federation, and in the confidences in which they indulged 
before foreign enquirers they pointed out with some bitterness 
that the Federation was too much under the thumb of this or 
that big-wig of the party. As for what went on at the great 
annual meetings of the Caucus, they let drop the singularly 
piquant admission that “there was much more liberty at Bir- 
mingham.” 

Each succeeding year brought fresh confirmation of this 
state of things. Many a member of the Liberal party real- 
ized it and grumbled; but they did not dare to protest out 
loud; this was left to the enfants terribles of the party, to men 
like Mr. Henry Labouchere, who said bluntly: “A feeling is 
growing amongst Liberals that the wire-pullers of the National 
Liberal Federation are taking too much on themselves, and that 
the Federation does as much harm as it does good. <A great 
meeting of delegates is annually held. A programme is sub- 
mitted to it, but by whom the programme is framed is shrouded 








1 Proceedings in connection with the eleventh annual meeting of the Feder- 
ation held in Birmingham on Nov. 6 and 7, Lond. 1888, p. 26. 


804 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp Part 





inmystery. The delegates are asked to accept it or to reject it. 
All amendments and all additional ‘planks’ are ruled out of 
order. ‘This deprives the meeting of any real representative 
character. Some things that they might desire to see in the 
programme are not there, others which they — or a good many 
of them—deem of doubtful acceptance by the entire party 
are pushed into the front.”! To the rejoinder of the Caucus 
officials, who referred him to the statutes of the Federation, 
Mr. Labouchere replied: “Yes, this is all very well, but it 
does not alter the fact that there is a growing feeling among 
Liberals that the Federation is becoming somewhat of a clique. 

Putting, however, criticism of detail aside, I still assert, 
firstly, that the Federation should be independent of the official 
party Organization; secondly, that its annual general meeting 
should be more of a Liberal Parliament and less of a meeting 
called together to express approval of cut and dried resolu- 
tions.” ? 

Even if it had wished to follow this advice, it was no easy 
matter for the Federation to do so; its connection with “ official 
Liberalism” was too firmly cemented by Mr. Gladstone’s pow- 
erful individuality, and then, however strong may have been 
the domineering spirit attributed to the “ wire-pullers,” they 
were sincerely convinced that it was a clear gain to the party 
to maintain close relations with the official leaders and to con- 
fine discussion to the arena into which these responsible chiefs 
could venture. But whatever may have been the motives for 
this policy, it none the less had the effect of giving an utterly 
wrong bias to the relations between public opinion and the 
party leaders under parliamentary government. 

Parliamentary government reposes on a division of labour 
and an apportionment of powers between public opinion and the 
leaders, the rulers, —an apportionment prescribed by the very 
nature of both. While public opinion by a sort of volcanic 
process upheaves and hurls forth one problem after another, 
the party leaders who alternately come into office, the rulers, 
fasten on those problems the solution of which appears to 
them necessary and possible; they are not to meddle with 
the others, and it is a crime on their part to play with 
them. Taking up the questions which await solution on their 


1 Truth, of Jan. 2, 1890. 2 Ibid., of Jan. 9 and 16, 1890. 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 305 





own responsibility, they must not shirk it or let their hand 
be forced, no more than they may arrest or dam the current 
of opinion which fertilizes the soil of every free political com- 
munity. It is this which constitutes the real separation of 
power on which parliamentary government rests, rather than 
that mechanical separation which Montesquieu fancied he had* 
discovered’ in English constitutionalism, and which has since 
been naively copied in various countries. 


In getting their programme given them by the delegates 
after having carefully composed if in private themselves 
ne : roo = 
of the party shifted _the responsibility. In like manner, by 
not allowing the representatives of the party, who had come 
from all parts of the country, to speak on this or that 
question because it was not ripe for solution and could only 
hamper the leaders of the party who have to carry out 
its policy, the managers of the Caucus inverted the parts 
and consequently did away with responsibility. The judg- 
ment which they pronounced on the questions raised was 
perhaps quite right in itself, but it did not admit of being 
enforced as they enforced it. For instance, in 1891 the author- 
ities of the Caucus would not allow a discussion or a division 
on the “eight hours question,” which was already stirring the 
country. They alleged that from information in their posses- 
sion (which they kept to themselves) only a few local Associa- 
tions were in favour of the “eight hours.” It is quite possible 
that the question of introducing a compulsory maximum of 
eight hours’ labour in every industry was not ripe for discus- 
sion, and perhaps even that it may never become so from the 
point of view of good sense. But the mere elimination of 
the question was not a proof of this. It was only a means of 
saving the leaders from the necessity of speaking out on the 
question, as it was their duty to do if they wished to be true 
to the spirit of parliamentary government, even if they found 
themselves at variance with the majority of their party; it was 
simply a device to avoid giving offence to any section of their 
supporters, to prevent the loss of votes at elections, and to 
enable them, while protected by the temporizing instructions 
of the council of the party, to wait quietly to see which way 
the cat would jump. 

VOL. I—X 








306 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [srEconp part 





Vv 


The effects and consequences of the complete identity which 
grew up between the popular Organization of Liberalism and_ 
the official leaders of the party, did not stop here. It was not 
mly the general economy of parliamentary government which 
was disturbed; the concrete existence of the party, the free 

\play of its forces and even of its feelings, was also affected by it. 
Having affirmed its community of interests with the official 
leaders on the Home Rule question, the popular Organization 
followed them so implicitly in this direction that it became a 
fixture there. It became engrossed, and made the whole body 
of Liberals become engrossed, in the single question of Ireland. 
For the parliamentary leaders of a party that is a logical and 
almost obligatory position to take up on great political ques- 
tions. In contracting as it were to solve particular ques- 
tions, the official leaders of the party stake their all on the 
result; they stand or fall by their definite programme. The 
party, on the other hand, cannot immure itself in a single 
question, however great the importance which it attaches 
to it. Representing, under the time-honoured system of party 
dualism, manifold and varied interests, it cannot sacrifice 
itself on the altar of one of them. Its government, its official 
leaders of the moment, have to play the part of scapegoat. 
The party which supported them in the country does not on 
that account abandon the beaten cause; it continues to keep 
it in view; but with the freedom of a body corporate unfet- 
tered by pledges, by feelings of amour-propre, by points of 
honour, it can relax any over-tension, retreat or advance a few 
paces, and while remaining true to itself in re, change its ac- 
tion in modo, and quietly create a quasi-new situation in which 
the old defeated leaders, released by the authority of sovereign 
opinion from the stringency of their former professions of faith, 
will be able to lead the party in new order of battle to combat 
and to victory. But if the party in the country completely 
identifies itself with the defeated leaders, if it follows them 
with all its baggage and intrenches itself with them in rear 
of the lost Bill, then its regular evolution becomes singularly 
difficult, if not impossible. The mutual pledges of the leaders 
and their supporters make them really each other’s prisoners, 


























NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 307 





like convicts fettered in couples, and even the example they 
set of reciprocal loyalty, edifying as it is in theory, fails 
to be so under the circumstances; for this feeling, when 
carried to its extreme limits in the relations between chiefs 
and followers, is apt to oscillate between sublime devotion and 
servility. 

Having followed the example of the official leaders of the 
party in their immovable attachment to the question of Home 
Rule for Ireland, the next step for the popular Organization of 
Liberalism was to consider adhesion to Home Rule as the dis- 
tinguishing mark of Liberalism, and not only adhesion to the 
principle of increasing the political power of the Irish people, 
but to Home Rule as it would be eventually proposed by the 
leader of the party. The Liberal creed having been set up in 
such a simple way with a profession of faith so easy of recogni- 
tion, the notion of political orthodoxy penetrated the Liberal 
Organization from one end to the other, and with this notion 
its corollary of heterodoxy. All dissent on the Irish question 
was regarded within the Liberal Associations as a heresy in 
regard to which tolerance became cowardice and intolerance a 
virtue. This view was stated in almost so many words by the 
principal leaders of the Caucus, who proved far more intolerant 
than some of the official chiefs of the party, and were strongly 
opposed to all moderate and conciliatory language. Lord 
Rosebery, a member of Mr. Gladstone’s last Cabinet and his 
future successor, was sharply rebuked by the President of the 
Caucus for having said that the Liberals would assume a grave 
responsibility if they let the split in the party become a per- 
manent one. In the opinion of the President of the Liberal 
Federation, this “ was not language that should be used ” when 
one had a majority. Having proved by arithmetical calcula- 
tion that the number of new Associations affiliated since the 
Home Rule crisis showed a clear gain of 25 per cent, he ex- 
pressed indignant astonishment that any one should propose to 
them, as Lord Rosebery did, to “make a pontoon to bring 
over those members of the party who were standing on the 
other side of the gulf.” ! 

The conclusion to which this language pointed was evidently 


1 President’s speech at the annual meeting of the Federation, in November, 
1886, at Leeds. , ; 


308 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





that it would be rather a deserving act than otherwise to widen 
the gulf, and in justice to the local Associations, it must be 
said that they did their best to bring this about. When the 
crisis of 1886 broke out, the withdrawal of the dissentient Lib- 
erals from the Caucus Associations was not complete; they had 
“ everywhere resigned the offices they held in the Associations, 
but in several localities they kept their names on the list of 
members, in the hope that when the Home Rule storm had 
spent its force, they would all be able to co-operate once more 
in the cause of Liberalism. But this did not suit the Gladsto- 
nian Liberals; they preferred to get rid of traitors at once, and 
they succeeded. As ageneral rule, the formal expulsion of the 
dissentient Liberals was not necessary ; their position in the 
Associations was made so unpleasant that they were obliged to 
withdraw altogether. The same thing took place in most of the 
Liberal clubs. The mixed character of these establishments, 
which were clubs first and political organizations afterwards, 
would have allowed the Liberals of both persuasions to meet on 
the neutral ground of the dining-room and the smoking-room 
without being false to their political convictions. But the 
Gladstonian members, who were in a majority almost every- 
where, thought fit to introduce the ordeal of the true Liberal 
faith, which consisted of Home Rule for Ireland, into the clubs 
as well. The dissentient Liberals were even ousted from some 
Associations in which they had a majority. By means of 
packed meetings the Gladstonians always put them in a 
minority; having once obtained control of the meeting, they 
carried resolutions hostile to the dissentients; and eventu- 
ally the latter gave up the game. This is what would have 
taken place in the Liberal Unionist citadel of Birmingham, 
as Mr. J. Chamberlain, whom events had converted into a 
complainant against the Caucus, stated with indignation. But 
in places where the Gladstonian members of the Associations 
were in a majority, they had no need to resort to underhand 
practices, but displayed an honest fanaticism. In some local- 
ities, however, the caucuses in their weeded state contained 
sober-minded men of broad and lofty views, who did what 
they could to combat the sectarian and intolerant spirit of 
their fellow-Gladstonians, and it was owing to their efforts 
and their tact that the malignant. attitude of the caucuses 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 309 





towards their old dissentient members did not become the rule. 
And it was the salutary influence of these persons that enabled 
some Liberal Associations to congratulate themselves “that the 
right of private judgment has not been called in question 
amongst us, and that no intolerance has been manifested to- 
wards the minority. . . . Looking to the future, we are in a 
far better position (for the reunion of the party) than the 
Liberals in many places, owing to the admirable forbearance 
of our party with the dissentient Liberals.” ? 

The men who used this language would even be entitled to 
speak with less modesty, to contrast their own conduct with 
that of the Liberals not only in many but in most places; for 
the Associations which showed tolerance towards the dissentient 
minorities were few in number. All the other Associations 
thought that in acting as they did they were only in more 
complete agreement with the party leaders and deserving better 
of the Home Rule cause, but in reality they were working 
against it. It is not necessary to take sides for or against 
Home Rule to acknowledge that the Irish problem demanded a 
solution, whether in the direction of agrarian or political re- 
form. But in view of the many interests, passions, and preju- 
dices which the Irish claims evoked on both sides, the question 
was not one of those the settlement of which could be thrust on 
the country by a Ministerial majority of a few votes; it was 
more one of those cases in which the formal vote ought to ex- 
press the assent of the national conscience conveyed in a spirit 
of concord and exalted justice. By envenoming the controversy, 
by embittering men’s minds and exasperating differences on 
matters of opinion, the Associations prevented an understand- 
ing being arrived at. It is true that in so doing they were 
supported, and powerfully supported, by the great parliamen- 
tary leaders without distinction of party, who vied with each 
other in abusive language and rancorous imputations. But if 
the responsibility of the caucuses is lessened by this, it none 
the less remains, and whatever may be the share which ought 
to be attributed to them, they will always be chargeable with 
having helped to prevent or delay the solution of the Irish 
problem. 


1 Extract from the minute book of a Yorkshire Liberal Association. 


310 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





VI 


In any event, the caucuses might flatter themselves that they 
had secured the unity of the party, that they had set up a 
political conformity, so that henceforth there was only one fold 
and one shepherd. But it soon turned out that everything had 
to be begun over again. The whole body of Liberalism would 
not fit into the narrow groove of a single question of Home 
Rule. The spokesmen of several other Radical claims which 
made use of the name of the party or wanted to thrust 
themselves on it, held, and rightly enough, that if every Radi- 
cal was a Home-Ruler, every Home-Ruler did not constitute 
a Radical. Far from consenting to keep in the background or 
to sacrifice themselves to Home Rule, they maintained that it 
was only by giving full satisfaction to their demand that the 
party of progress would justify its name and its raison @’étre. 
The caucuses were destined to learn to their cost the old truth 
that one is always a reactionary in the eyes of somebody. It 
was, in fact, in this somewhat general and vague shape that 
the first signs of revolt against the Organization and the official 
leaders of the party appeared: they were not considered ad- 
vanced enough, they were said to have kept a “ Whig tail,” 
and a pretty long one according to the thorough-going Radi- 
cals. The caucuses, in their anxiety to stifle all discontent, 
at first could only hit on the device of bringing out the old 
Whig implement, of opening the “grand old Liberal um- 
brella” under which all the elements of the party formerly 
gathered in a spirit of compromise, the favourite plan of the 
weak-kneed Liberals, whom the caucuses had been fortunate 
enough to get rid of in 1886. It was supposed that after 
their withdrawal the umbrella had been thrown into the 
dust-heap, but evidently it still had some wear left in it. 
All that was done was to lengthen the handle a little, and 
when mended in this way it was to serve as a support and 
a shelter to Liberals and Radicals of all shades whatsoever. 
This ingenious contrivance consisted simply of adding a couple 
of words to the title “ Liberal Associations” and converting 
them into “Liberal and Radical Associations.” Childish as 
this method of reconciling differences of opinion may seem, it 
was not wholly so in practice, since in some cases the Radicals 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 311 





were satisfied or appeared to be satisfied with it, while in others 
they cried out that it was robbery to take their name.' These 
latter were more numerous or at any rate more demonstrative, 
and they were destined to become more and more aggressive 
every day. Endless troubles and difficulties were, therefore, in 
store for the party Organization. 

It had a foretaste of them as early as the year 1887, in Lon- 
don. As the metropolis was slipping more and more away 
from Liberalism, and had inflicted a crushing defeat on the 
Gladstonians at the last general election, the Organization de- 
cided to reinforce the Caucus in London. With this object it 
reorganized the local Associations of the various parliamentary 
boroughs into which the capital is divided, and, as a finishing 
touch, conceived the plan of combining them all into a central 
caucus for the whole metropolis, which should hold the repre- 
sentatives of every shade of the Opposition. The London 
workingmen’s clubs not.only declined to join the combination, 
but were opposed to the new London Caucus taking the title of 
Liberal and Radical Union, which its founders bestowed on it 
in conformity with the new formula of political chemistry. 
The representatives of the clubs attended the meeting held for 
constituting this Union to uphold the protest, and to claim for 
the members of the clubs the exclusive right to the appellation 
of bona fide Radicals. ‘They moved an amendment to omit the 
words and Radical from the title of the Caucus. The matter 
stopped here; the holders of the meeting, true to the intolerant 
ways of the Caucus, would not allow the authors of the amend- 
ment a hearing, in spite of the efforts of Mr. John Morley, who 
was in the Chair. The protest, moreover, did not derive great 
importance from the number of those who originated it; the 
Radical clubs, although they had some tens of thousands of 
members, did not represent any great political force in the enor- 
mous metropolis. But all these incidents were highly charac- 
teristic, from the state of feeling disclosed in the conflicts they 
produced between the irreconcilable Radicals and the Liberals 
of the official Organization, which the former regarded with 
profound distrust. The ultra-Radical Press was still more out- 


1 In some places, on the other hand, it was the “‘ Liberals ’’ who opposed the 
change in the sign of the Association so as to avoid all appearance of connec- 
tion with the ‘‘ extremists.”’ 


812 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp parr 





spoken on this occasion in stating the views of the true Radi- 
cals on the Caucus and its alliance with the official leaders of . 
the party. “The Radical clubs,” remarked the old organ of 
extreme popular Radicalism, “have a mission to fulfil which 
is certainly imperilled by absorption in the great Schnadhorst 
‘machine’. ..; the Brummagem machine will infallibly grind 
the Radicals to powder if they are not awake.” Impugning the 
character and the past of the Liberal Federation, the paper 
showed that the “ Caucusians” were only sham democrats, im- 
postors. “The Caucusians know that if they avow themselves 
mere party opportunists, which they really are, the democratic 
fish would give their net a wide berth.”! Other Radical organs, 
less violent in point of form, also considered the influence of 
the Organization a danger for Radicalism. The creation of 
the London central Caucus was, according to Mr. Labouchere, 
“merely an attempt to place all the London constituencies 
under the lash of the Liberal Whip. ... . What I want to see 
in fact,” he concluded, “is a Radical party in contradiction to 
a Liberal party.”* This conclusion exactly expressed the pre- 
occupations and wishes of the advanced Radicals, and seen 
afterward it was realized to a certain extent. Under the lead- 
ership of the same Mr. Labouchere, a group was formed in tte 
House of Commons which affected complete independence of 
the Whips and of official Liberalism and its leaders in general. 
These “new Radicals” often followed Mr. Gladstone, but they 
had no scruple about voting against him when they thought fit 
to pay this tribute to their Radical views. They undoubtedly 
enjoyed a good deal of sympathy in the country, but their 
Radicalism, which was essentially of a political nature and was 
prompted by politicians, was soon eclipsed by the social Radi- 
calism which was beginning to rise above the horizon. 


Vit 


he distrust of the Organization of the Liberal party and its 
official Teaders, w ced Radic ed and dif- 


fused throughout the country, coincided with the desire grow-— 
ing up among the working classes to use their newly acquired 


political power in improving their_material welfare. As the 


1 Reynolds’ Newspaper, Jan. 16, 1887. 2 Truth, Feb. 25, 1887. 

















NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 313 





official Liberal party seemed to the leaders of the workingmen 
as selfish and as insincere in their profession of devotion to the 
popular cause, as much a tool of the capitalists, as the other 
party, champions of labour despaired of political parties ever 
promoting legislation calculated to bring about an economic 
readjustment of society in the interests of the masses. They 
thereupon conceived, or rather reverted to the idea of cutting 
themselves adrift from political parties and of organizing the 
labour contingents into an independent force for the conquest 
of the Legislature, of accepting in the meanwhile social reforms 
from whatever quarter they came, and of fighting every one 
who happened to cross their path, whether they went by the 
name of Liberals, Radicals, or Tories. The labour party formed 
on this basis would adopt the same attitude in Parliament as 
the Irish party under Parnell had maintained with such good 
results to the Irish cause; in giving its support to the highest 
bidder it would wrest one concession after another from the 
rival parties, who were accustomed to sell themselves by auc- 
tion, and so bit by bit construct the new social fabric. This 
plan having been sanctioned by a labour Congress which met 
at_ Bradford in 1888, the organization of a labour party was 
forthwith set_on foot throughout the country; Associations 
with local branches, annual meetings of delegates, etc, were 
formedon the model of the Caucus. Some old Organizations, 
socialist societies, or ultra-radical bodies, in their turn exerted 
themselves in exhorting the workmen to vote only for labour 
candidates at all elections, whether for Parliament or for local 
assemblies. The material success of the new Organization was 
not very marked, in its early years at all events; the new Asso- 
ciations were far from causing uneasiness in the ranks of the 
two great parties, and their annual congresses in no way pos- 
sessed the representative importance which they tried to make 
out by adding up an imposing total of adherents with a long 
string of noughts. But the spirit which underlay this move- 
ment gained ground daily; the tendency to disregard political 
quarrels, which kept parties alive, and to demand the improve- 
ment of their lot from legislation, extended among the working 
classes. It invaded even the trades-unions, the professional 
labour federations which carefully held aloof from politics and 
had never made but one request to the Legislature, to the 

















314 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [sEconp Part 





State: Get out of our light, leave us alone to attend to our 
business! The old orthodox Trades-Unionism was driven back 
by the New Unionism with its socialistic spirit. The profound 
pity for the poor and needy which seized on the community 
and became, as it were, its public religion, gave life and im- 
petus to the tendencies represented by the New 

while a great upheaval of the lowest strata of labour, the 
London dockers’ strike in 1890, was a solemn inauguration 
of its career. 

This movement had not reached a high degree of intensity 
when several Liberals, who were, nevertheless, stirred by it, 
proceeded to interrogate their conscience and to ask them- 
selves if their party really understood the needs of contem- 
porary society, if it realized the new aspirations which were 
at work within it and if it cared to gratify them. The reply 
which they gave to these questions was in the negative: 
the Liberal party held itself out_as the party of the masses 
as opposed to the classes (Mr. Gladstone’s formula at the time 
of the crisis of 1886), but in reality it had not gained the 
affection of the people while it had alienated the middle 
classes; the official leaders, almost all of them survivors of 
an old order of things, were quite out of touch with the 
masses; the latter were indifferent to the political preoccupa- 
tions of the leaders, they took no interest in Home Rule, to 
which these leaders were so attached; they would not follow 
them until the sterile controversies of party had been replaced 
by questions dealing with the people’s daily subsistence ; the 
party would only return to power on condition of adapting its 
policy to the requirements of the masses and of thus recog- 
nizing the transformation of the old into the new Liberalism ; 
it was no use appealing to the party programme which met 
with unanimous approval at the last conference of the Lib- 
eral Federation; this programme was not the outcome of the 
deliberations of the conference, nor of any other representa- 
tive assembly of Liberals; it was evidently the offspring of 
the small committee that meets in Parliament Street (the 
headquarters of the Caucus), and then no discussion of it was 
allowed, all the amendments were practically excluded; there 
was no great enthusiasm among the people for measures, no 
doubt valuable in themselves, such as Disestablishment of the 




















NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 315 





Welsh Church, the abolition of primogeniture, etc.; but, on the 
other hand, the masses feel that they have wants, and that a 
possible satisfaction must be found for them; these feelings 
are inarticulate, but “with the statesman rests the responsi- 
bility to devise and formulate those reforms by which, with- 
out violence to persons or shock to the principles of public 
morality, there may be compassed for the people a wider dif- 
fusion of physical comfort, and thus a loftier standard of 
national morality; this is the new Liberalism.” 4 

But the measures which constituted the old Radical stock-in- 
trade, such as Disestablishment of the Church, abolition of 
primogeniture, etc., although they did not, as the “new Liber- 
als” pointed out, arouse the enthusiasm of the masses, none 
the less still had their fanatical supporters. After the first 
intoxication of Home Rule had passed away, they all bethought 
them of their pet schemes and pressed them on the party 
Organization and the leaders. Each section demanded priority 
for its little or great reform, and each reform had its own group 
of members in the House and of voters ir the country. he 
crumbling process which had_afflicted the Liberal party for_ 
years past once more became conspicuous. The Caucus from 
the first undertook to root out this disease, and with this object, 
as we have seen, fell upon the moderates, whom it considered 
as the source of the mischief, —it was mouldy Whigs who 
stood in the way of the harmony of the party. The moderates 
had been got rid of, but complete unity was as far off as ever. 
Mr. J. Chamberlain, when he was master of the Caucus, had 
pointed out to the detractors of this Organization that they 
were wasting their time in opposing it, that the Caucus was 
like the fabled hydra, whose heads grew again as fast as they 
were cut off.2 Now its adherents could see that it was the 
Caucus itself which had to face the hydra. New Radicalism, 
new Unionism, new Liberalism, were so many new heads added 
to those against which it had been long contending without 
possessing any resemblance to a Hercules. It was of no use 





1Cf. ‘‘The New Liberalism,’”’ by L. Atherley Jones (Nineteenth Century, 
August, 1889) ; ‘‘The New Liberalism ”’ : aresponse by G. W. E. Russell (ibid. 
September, 1889) ; ‘‘Mr. Morley and the New Radicalism,’’ by a ‘‘ Socialist 
Radical’? (New Review, 1889). 

2 Speech at Birmingham on the 5th of January, 1885 (Times, Jan. 6, 1885). 


316 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seEconp Part 





going on serving up Home Rule to the public. The Caucus 
was obliged to admit in the end that the latter was not so fond 
of the dish as in 1886 and in the years which immediately 
followed it. Looking at the situation from the point of view 
which was most natural to it, from an electioneering standpoint, 
the Caucus came to the conclusion that the party could not go 
to the country on Home Rule alone. Thereupon, unlike the 
captain of a ship in peril, who throws all his ballast overboard, 
the Caucus set to work to take in more. By piling up the 
Radical demands in the course of two or three years, it man- 
aged, before 1892, to frame a lengthy programme which, in the 
eyes of its friends, would last the Liberal party well up to the 
end of the century, or, according to its opponents, to the end 
of alltime. In this catalogue of desirable reforms, the most 
complete edition of which was laid before the annual confer- 
ence of the party at Newcastle in November, 1891, and which 
became historic under the name of the “ Newcastle Programme,” 
there was enough to satisfy, if not everybody, whom it is im- 
possible to please, at all events a good many people. To some 
the list offered Home Rule, to others the Disestablishment of 
the Church and electoral reform, to others, again, local veto 
of the drink traffic, the taxation of ground rents, the abolition 
or transformation of the House of Lords, ete., ete. All this 
was, perhaps, not very new; several of these measures, of older 
standing even than Home Rule, had long been demanded by 
the different sections of Radical opinion; but they now all 
simultaneously received the solemn sanction of the supreme 
organs of the party by virtue of a general undertaking which 
conferred on each of these sections the benefits, coupled, of 
course, with the obligations, of a mutual insurance. How and 
when were they to discharge these reciprocal obligations and 
to come by their own—the future alone could reply to this 
indiscreet question. In the meanwhile all could indulge in 
hope. Huddled together in the same omnibus! programme, 
demands of the most varied character were required to com- 
bine and so ensure the unity of the party. The omnibus was 


1 The largest subdivision of the programme was proposed and voted at the 
annual conferences of the Liberal Federation under the name of ‘‘ omnibus ’”’ 
resolution (Proceedings in connection with the fourteenth annual meeting of 
the Federation, held in Newcastle on Tyne, pp. 8 and 92). 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 317 





to take the place of the old umbrella, and with all the more 
success because it contained schemes of reform which met the 
social claims that had become so strong in the last few years. 
The Caucus, on behalf of the Liberal party, abjured as a heresy 
the old creed of laissez-faire and laissez-passer, and led it into 
the path of State socialism. The official chiefs of the party, 
who were accused of being “out of touch with modern Liberal 
thought,” were really anything but socialist reformers. Some 
of them, above all Mr. Gladstone, were cast more in a Conserv- 
atiye mould, especially as regards social organization; others, 
bred in the rationalist individualism of the Mill school, held 
fast to their philosophic creed, and, so far as they personally 
were concerned, were even ready to sacrifice themselves to it ; 
others again, being not much troubled with convictions, could 
not for that very reason feel any heartfelt attachment to or real 
enthusiasm for social reforms. But they were all obliged to 
adopt the programme of the Federation more or less explicitly, 
bound hand and foot as they were to the party Organization and 
forced to follow each other like the Siamese twins. Formerly 
the Organization, falling into line behind the official leaders, 
was dragging the whole party into the Home Rule question at 
the risk of cutting off its retreat and its supplies; now, sud- 
denly shifting its sails to catch the new breeze, it was taking 
in tow the leaders, who were resigned, perhaps rallied, but not 
convinced. 

Laying themselves open to suspicion, the Caucus and the 
official leaders had not disarmed the forces which confronted 
them, and especially those which were ranged under the ban- 
ner of socialism. Their good faith was suspected far more 
than it deserved; every step they took in the direction of the 
new social demands was looked on rather as a snare or as 
a dodge to circumvent the voters. The alarm was, therefore, 
still sounded against “fossil official Liberalism,” which took 
the part of stage villain played by the Whigs before 1886; 
“independent labour parties ” were still formed, and working- 
men candidates brought forward, who were destined really to 
give official Liberalism serious trouble, as was proved by the 
general elections, one after the other, in which independent 
candidates of this kind, without achieving any brilliant suc- 
cess on their own account, succeeded, in a good many con- 


318 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [seconp part 





stituencies, in detaching a sufficiently large number of votes 
from the Liberals to ensure their defeat by their Tory rivals. 


Vill 


Nevertheless the general election, which took place a few 
months after the adoption of the Newcastle Programme, 
ended in-a-victory for official] Liberalism The Liberals came 
back to the House with a very small and above all a very 
heterogeneous majority ; it_was more a collection of different 

‘oups_ whose varied aspirations and demands were entered 
in the famous omnibus programme of Newcastle. The mem- 
bers who represented these manifold and not always harmo- 
nious interests, none the less formed a compact array behind 
Mr. Gladstone on his return to office, which remained such 
during the whole of this Parliament (1892-1895). Invariably 
presenting a united front, it followed Mr. Gladstone steadily, 
impelled alike by fear and by calculation, or if the expression 
is preferred, by duty and by hope. The Liberal Associations 
which had returned the members of the majority and which 
held their re-election in their hands, were determined that they 
should vote obediently for Mr. Gladstone. This express obli- 
gation was reinforced by the agreement implied in the New- 
castle Programme, which bound each group to vote — whether 
they approved them or not—for the measures demanded by 
the other groups, on condition that they did the same — the 
practice known in political slang by the name of log-rolling. 

To carry out the agreement their common agent, the 
Ministry, prepared and presented to the House, with exem- 
plary diligence, one measure after another intended to satisfy 
each group in turn. But it had great difficulty in passing its 
Bills ; for not only was it confronted by an extremely numer- 
ous and very resolute Opposition, but not one of the important 
measures of the composite programme which it had received 
from the Caucus was backed by a body of opinion strong enough 
to overawe the Opposition and overcome the resistance of the 
House of Lords, where the Liberal government was in a minor- 
ity. Refraining, for this reason perhaps, from appealing: to 
the highest court, to the country, from submitting to it the 
questions in dispute, from taking its opinion specially on this 























NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 319 





or that important measure left in suspense, such as Home 
Rule or the Employers’ Liability Bill, the Government thought 
it was cleverer to follow the plan of advocates who address 
their arguments to points of procedure instead of to the 
merits of the case. It impugned the attitude of the House of 
Lords, alleging that it hampered the work of progressive legis- 
lation, of reforms. All who desired these reforms, however 
different they might be, ought, so to speak, to club together 
their resentment against the Lords and presenting the sem- 
blance of having a common platform, already provided by the 
elaborate combination of the Newcastle Programme, give thé 
Liberal Ministry a fresh lease of strength. In consequence 
the Caucus started a campaign in the country against the 
House of Lords and its legislative prerogatives, but without 
offering a clear and precise solution falling within the range of 
constitutional logic. The object, indeed, was rather to bring 
about a state of feeling in the country on which it appeared 
easier to reunite the majority of the electorate than on some 
definite legislative measures. With the same object the Min- 
istry, in their anxiety to prove the wickedness of the Lords and 
the purity of their own intentions, went on zealously bringing 
in bills without any prospect of being able to carry them. 
They were aware that it was “ ploughing the sands of the sea- 
shore,” but they calculated that the defeat by the Opposition 
of all these bills, which promised so many things to so many 
people (and some of which, taken on their own merits, will per- 
haps, together with the administrative achievements of the 
Ministry,—the point need not be discussed in this work, — 
have a very creditable place in the history of English legisla- 
tion and administration) would “fill up the cup,” ? and make 
the exasperated electors go over in a body to the Liberal side 
at the next general election. 

This expectation was disappointed. The masses did not boil 
over into wrath against the Lords, as indeed had been fore- 
shadowed by the slight effect produced on public opinion by 
the stirring appeal which the Liberal Federation issued after 
the rejection of the Home. Rule Bill in the Upper House. 
Worn out by its barren labour of “ ploughing the sands,” the 


1 Speech of Mr. H. H. Asquith, Home Secretary. 
2 Speech of Sir W. V. Harcourt, leader of the House. 


320 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





Liberal Ministry, of which Lord Rosebery had become chief 
since Mr. Gladstone’s retirement in 1894, was obliged to resign 
in 1895. And when the electors were asked to return a new 
Parliament immediately afterward, the Liberal party found 
itself almost as much split up in the country as it had been 
in the House by the various demands for which it solicited 
general popular support, relying in one place on local veto, in 
another on the reform of the House of Lords, or again on Dis- 
establishment, and soon. But the niceties of log-rolling, which 
could be practised with a certain amount of success among™ 
groups of an assembly, had not so good a chance of influencing 
the bulk of the electorate, and the less so because the attempts 
at fulfilling the promises of the Newcastle Programme had not 
only given rise to disappointment among those who had placed 
their hopes on them, but had also created apprehension in the 
minds of a good many others whose interests were threatened 
by one or the other of the proposed Radical reforms. The 
result was that a certain number of desertions at the poll was 
enough, in the precarious state of the Liberal majority, to upset 
the balance of parties, and with the aid 6f the electoral system 
in force which enables a small majority of voters distributed 
over a number of constituencies to sweep them all off for the 
benefit of the winner, as at a gaming-table, this Liberal reverse 
was converted into a catastrophe. The cleverly concocted com- 
pound of the Newcastle Programme, this masterpiece of the 
wire-pullers, instead of concentrating on itself a Liberal ma- 
jority, helped to disperse it. After the event the eyes of the 
great leaders of the party were opened; they were now of 
opinion that the Newcastle Programme was too long to arrest 
the minds and the consciences of the electors,’ or they even 
went so far as to regret having accepted this programme from 
the hand of the Liberal Federation and to almost disavow the 
campaign against the Lords.” These regrets were idle, the 
phantom of unity which it was sought to retain by means of 
the exorcisms of the Caucus was as far off as ever; all that 
was left for the moment was a ere historical party over- 
thrown. 


1 Speech of Lord Rosebery at the Eighty Club, July 3, 1895, at the time 
when he was making over office to the Marquis of Salisbury. 
2 Speech of Lord Rosebery at Huddersfield, March 27, 1896. 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 321 





IX 


While the Liberal party had to contend, during these _years, 
1888-1895, alike with the regular Opposition and the cen- 
trifugal tendencies in its own ranks which it endeavoured to 
overcome by devices of organization, the Conservative party 
had the good luck to find a more favourable _battle-ground 
than_that_of its opponents, and to be well-nigh free from the 
anxieties caused by internal divisions. It will be recollected how 
“Tory democracy” had given a new direction to the Conservative 
party. The boldness and ease with which it had adopted this 
policy did not make the position of the Conservative party in its 
competition with the Radicals in Radicalism a Jess awkward 
one. The Irish crisis rescued it from this situation. It was a 
real windfall for the party ; while its old hand was left intact, 
it received a number of trump cards which enabled it at one 
time to pause and be more cautious in its play, at another to 
pursue the game with all the appearance of necessity and 
almost of decorum. Mr. Gladstone’s attempt to grant Home 
Rule to Ireland allowed the Tories to assume the part of 
champions of the integrity of the Empire, to reappear in a 
Conservative role. They recovered their raison d’étre, so to 
speak, and the consciousness that they had one gave them 
cohesion and buoyancy in the struggle for existence. There 
was no need whatever to revive them with the heroic reme- 
dies prescribed by Lord Randolph and his school. The beat 
of their pulse was once more spontaneous and normal. And 
they could flatter themselves that they were genuine Conserva- 
tives without reactionary tendencies. The best proof of this 
was their alliance with Liberals and even with Radicals, like 
Mr. Chamberlain, who joined their ranks to defend the national 
inheritance. To keep this alliance, they would make conces- 
sions to the policy of their allies, and assent to measures 
which would have seemed almost revolutionary to the Con- 
servatives of the day before; but the extent of the sacrifices 
made would only be more striking evidence of their self-denial 
and boundless devotion to the great cause of the maintenance 
of the Empire. They would do evil for the sake of good; 
they would break with the traditions of the Tory party in 
order to preserve its ancient virtue. 

VOL. F— ¥ 





















































+ $22 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





The Tory party having recovered its proper position, it 
was no longer possible to draw it on by a policy of dash; 
grand demonstrations against the leaders or pronunciamientos 
carried out with the aid of the popular Organizations were, 
for the moment at least, out of place and useless, even 
for urging Toryism farther on the path” of democracy. Lord 
Randolph Churchill failed to grasp this, and he paid for his 
mistaken view of the situation. In the Salisbury Ministry, 
which came into office after the general election of 1886, Lord 
Randolph obtained the second place, not only on account of 
his personal weight but out of consideration for the urban 
democracy of which he was the acknowledged chief and which 
had contributed so much to the victory at the polls. His mere 
presence in the Cabinet with the rank of leader of the House 
of Commons evidently ensured democratic Toryism a large 
share in the counsels of the Government. But hardly had 
a few months elapsed when he suddenly left the Ministry on 
the pretext that it did not sufficiently consult the interests of 
the taxpayer in its financial policy. This retirement created 
a great sensation in the country, but that was all. The popu- 
lar Organizations which had risen in Churchill’s defence a 
few years before now kept quiet. What appeared to be in 
danger for the moment was not so much the cause of the 
people threatened by the aristocratic leaders, as the cause of 
the Union for which these very leaders had fought with so 
much distinction and success. The immediate future of the 
party being bound up with this cause, the provincial Associa- 
tions felt instinctively that all they had to do was to rally 
round Lord Salisbury and his colleagues. And they did so 
in silence, leaving Lord Randolph Churchill to sulk in his 
tent. The leaders issued victorious from this incident, which 
looked like a grave crisis for a moment, and thanks to the 
success of their administration, which defied the onslaughts 
of the Opposition for years, they saw their authority and 
prestige grow daily higher in the party. Their brilliance, 
as well as the eclipse of the promoter of democratic Toryism, 
had the natural consequence of dimming the lustre of popular 
Organization which had just risen above the horizon opposite 


the leadership... Justead of being, as Randolph Churchill and 
his friends wished, the_sun of the party’s planetary system, 
ee 





NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 8238 





the representative Organization became almost a satellite of 
t he leaders. It performed all its movements and reappeared 
every year in the conferences of delegates of the federated 
Associations, but it was far from regulating the course of the 
party, even in appearance, as the Radical Caucus did. The 
resolutions passed at these conferences did not become ipso 
facto, and were not supposed to become, items in the Tory pro- 
gramme. While the delegates of the Radical caucuses formed 
deliberative, if not deliberating, assemblies, the conferences of 
the Conservative Associations, democratized as they were, only 
discharged consultative functions. The leaders, the official 
chiefs of the party, had the last word, and the popular dele- 
gates made no serious attempt to deprive them of it. A com- 
bination of circumstances favourable to the rise of the leader- 
ship was thus sufficient to show how great its strength still 
was, what a hold it still had on the public mind, how it 
swayed the imagination; in a word, how deep-rooted were 
the traditional influences of which the Tory party was the 
great depositary in the body politic of England. The logic 
of this situation, which Lord Randolph Churchill failed to 
appreciate, made a severe example of him; not only did he 
learn to his cost that it was not enough to pronounce against 
the leaders to make the people flock round him like Israel 
round Absalom, but when after leaving office he thought fit 
to occasionally remind his old colleagues in the Government 
of his existence by scathing criticism of their measures, the 
Union of the Conservative Associations, into which he had 
breathed almost a new life, repudiated him by turning him 
out of the Council at the annual elections of 1890. 

But after all, in spite of the rise of the leadership and the 
eclipse of Lord Randolph Churchill, which showed the per- 
sistent force of the old influences, the latter were very far from 
being absolute masters of the situation. The impress made by 
democratic Toryism was too deep to be obliterated by them. 
Churchill’s work did not disappear with him; by simple vis 
inertice the democratization of Toryism went on, quietly and un- 
obtrusively, but without interruption. The progressive policy 

of the Salisbury Ministry was doubtless to a great extent due 
to_the fact that it was kept in power by the votes of the 
Tjberal_ Unionists. Consideration for this alliance not only 




















324 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [seconp part 





prevented it from indulging in a reactionary policy, but it was 
even obliged to give proof of its Liberalism; for the Liberal 
Unionists, who were continually denounced by the Gladstonian 
Liberals as traitors to the Liberal cause, were anxious to show 
the country that Unionism was in no way incompatible with 
measures of a very liberal, broad character. Mr. Chamberlain, 
a thoroughbred Radical, who had parted company with ortho- 
dox or official Radicalism, was specially preoccupied with this. 
The Government met their views; it introduced one reform 
after another. The old Tories, who were too well disciplined 
to protest aloud, were in consternation, and, fastening on the 
most obvious cause, mentally cursed Mr. Chamberlain for lead- 
ing the Tory party astray. In point of fact, pre Salishury 
Ministry, while listening to the advice of its Liberal allies, 
followed with no Tess —alacnity the impulse coming from its 
own party fermenting under the democratic leaven introduced 
intoit- This process did not go on as a matter of course, it 
met with many an obstacle in class prejudices, in the hie- 
rarchical spirit of the community, in the indifference and 
ignorance of the masses; but it none the less continued in an 
undemonstrative but unfailing way. Its principal centre and 
its prime agent was precisely the Ona ET a thee 
the Conservative caucuses. So that in spite of the retiring 
part played by the Union of Conservative Associations, and 
its slight official influence, the local Organizations, by their 
daily, hourly imperceptible action, indirectly affected the policy 
of the party and the attitude of its chiefs. In fact, the main- 


8 of the Mini j e House was now the Tory membeérs- 
for the large towns,maost of whom represented the middle class 


and the workmen identified with the democratized Associations. 

The loss of power, in 1892, and the wish to obtain another and 
a more favourable verdict from the mass of voters was in no 
way calculated to alter these tendencies of the Tory leaders, 
nor to lessen the influences to which they were now subjected. 
The return of the Tories to power, which has lately taken place 
(in 1895) with the indispensable assistance of the Liberal 
Unionists, gives these influences a fresh lease of life. 





























We have now come to the end of the distance traversed by 
the English party Organization known by the name of the 


ex 


NINTH CHAP.] CRISIS OF 1886 AND PARTY ORGANIZATION 325 





Caucus. From its appearance on the scene of history we have 
followed its fortunes; we have pursued it in all its great mani- 
festations, letting ourselves rather be guided by it, so as to 
discover what it would reveal of itself, with the liberty, of 
course, of seeing with our own eyes. Its career, up to the 
present relatively short, and above all the fact that in conse- 
quence of the method which I have adopted as being more 
scientific, we have only been able to watch the Caucus on the 
stage and on the move so to speak, have prevented us from 
giving a complete picture of it. But now that it has stopped, 
or rather appears to have done so to the observer obliged to 
stop himself, it may be possible to supplement the impression 
derived from the Caucus by considering it in a state of repose. 
After having observed it to a certain extent in its dynamic, 
we may now study it in its static condition. This is what I 
now propose to undertake by means of 3 systematic analysis 
of_its component parts, of their co-ordination and their daily 
working. 











THIRD PART 


FIRST CHAPTER 


THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 


I 


Tue history of the establishment of the Birmingham Caucus 
which was the starting-point of the movement which we are 
considering, has supplied us with an outline of the machinery 
of the representative Associations. It will be remembered that 
agcording to the theory of the Caucus all the inhabitants of the 
locality Lelonging to etthier party assemble in public meetings 
to si settle the affairs of the party, directly or through delegates 
elected at these meetings and constituting deliberative bodies 
outside those which owe their existence to the Constitution. 
Teir duty and their work consist in upholding and developing 
iy_the constituency, and consequently in the kingdom, Liberal 
or_ Conservative principles, as the case may be, and in securing 
the election of Members belonging to the same party. The 
success of these Members at the polling-booth is intended to 
procure the party preponderance in Parliament, which again is 
to ensure the triumph of the principles of the parties styled Lib- 
eral or Conservative, supposed to be alone capable of making 
ia country great and happy in times aes and ae come. 
main f the Ca thus 
nae to manipulating the electorate in the ee _of the 
party, with the pretension of doing this on behalf of and by 
the people. How do they set about it, how do they discharge 
the duty they have undertaken, and what is really the part 
played and the advantage derived by the people — this is what 
we are about to examine point by point. 












































Starting from the principle that the whole electoral popula- 
tion is divided into two sections, into Liberals and Tories, the 
organization of the parties expects that in each locality the 

329 


330 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [tuH1rp Part 





Liberal Association shall include all the Liberals, and the Con- 
servative Association all the Conservatives. This is the theory. 
The practice is very far removed from it. In reality the Asso- 
ciation embraces only a very small fraction of the “party.” 
This is the first of the points which command the situation, 
and to find one’s bearings it is necessary to take note of it at 
once. The study of the daily working of the Caucus, will con- 
sequently consist in ascertaining the reaction of this fraction on 
the whole, in considering their respective forces, the active 
power of the one and the resisting power of the other, the 
methods and mode of action employed by the former and their 
application. 

We shall begin by studying the machinery of the Orgamiza- 
tion and the men who set it in motion. 

The basis of the organization of the party in the boroughs i is 
the ward or polling-district, where the Tocal adherents of the 
party assembled in general meetings constitute the electorate of 
the Organization; from these original electors proceeds the rep- 
resentation of the party. The delegates elected by the wards 
form the central Association of the electoral division, which is 
destined to be as it were the local parliament of the party with 
the executive committee for ministry. To be a member of the 
ward Association or of the central Association it is sufficient, 
according to the Birmingham doctrine, to declare one’s ad- 
herence to the party. The practice in this respect, as well as 
in regard to several other points of organization, is not abso- 
lutely uniform. In a good many places the new member must 
be introduced by one or two persons, or a formal vote be taken 
on his admission, or he must sign a declaration of adhesion to 
the Association and receive a ticket of membership. In point 
of fact new recruits are warmly welcomed, and no difficulty is 
' made about admitting them, especially on the Liberal side. 
Partly from a feeling of “confidence in the people” which 
they affect, and partly owing to certain easy-going ways which 
characterize them, the Liberals suffer every one to come freely 
to them, whereas the Tories, who are more particular, and who 
are still in their democratic apprenticeship, take elaborate pre- 
cautions by admitting only members “duly enrolled,” and 
sometimes by reserving to themselves the right to expel mem- 
bers whose political conduct may be held incompatible with 

















FIRST CHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 331 





the title of Conservative. They stipulate further, in their 
rules at all events, that the members of the Association are 
to respect the authority of the “recognized chiefs” of the 
party, etc. In spite of these grand precautions “traitors” 
creep into the Tory ward Organizations, who are abandoned 
enough to supply the Radical newspaper with reports of their 
meetings. When they are discovered they are expelled. The 
possession of a Parliamentary vote is seldom required as a 
qualification for membership of the Association. And there is 
hardly any limit of age; when the minimum age is stated it is 
fixed at twenty, eighteen, or even at sixteen or fifteen years, 
so as to enlist people as early as possible. 

The statutory powers of the ward meetings consist in ap- 
pointing their permanent committee (with as many members as 
they like), in_electing the delegates to the central Association, 
that is to say to the “hundreds,” and finally du_nominating 
candidates for the annual municipal elections, in which the 
ward is the unit. The importance, however, of these ward 
meetings does not lie so much in this formal business, which, 
moreover, requires only two or three sittings a year, as in the 
relations which they establish among the adherents of the 
party. In the first place itis there that goes on the process 
of_natural selection of influential persons destined to become 
leaders in their_street or block. The managers of the Caucus 
of the division keep an eye on the rise and growth of these 
local influences; in attending the ward meetings they notice 
the good speakers, the ardent spirits, the men ‘of action, and 
become acquainted with them. For it is they who will be the 
pillars of the Organization. Then the ward meetings are a 
means of maintaining cohesion, of keeping up party ties among 
their frequenters, just as they present an opportunity for mak- 
ing recruits. When there are no elections or statutory business 
on hand, members meet for the purpose of meeting, to be 
together. Sometimes the Caucus sends some one to make them 
a brief political speech. Sometimes it is the great question 
of the day or the passing of an important law which provides 
matter for discussion or conversation. Besides, the great 
familiarity of every Englishman with the procedure of delib- 
erative assemblies and the imperturbable gravity with which 
he moves or seconds proposals, motions, amendments, almost 




















332 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PATIES  [ruirp parr 





without an object, easily enables a meeting to kill the time 
fairly decently. If the ward meetings are held, as is generally 
the case with the Conservatives, in the public-houses, the cur- 
rent business is provided: drinking goeson. The public-houses 
are to a certain extent the base of operations of the Tory or- 
ganization of the ward. ‘The latter is divided, for the needs of 
the cause, into a certain number of sections with a public-house 
for centre. The ward group holds its meetings by turns in 
each of these ten or twelve public-houses where the people of 
the neighbourhood gather round the small permanent group 
which forms the nucleus of all the meetings. The publican on 
his side tries to bring people to them for the good of the house. 
He invites those who are not yet members of the Association, 
offers to stand sponsor for them, and to procure their admis- 
sion as members. 

Important as the groundwork of the Organization of the 
party, the ward association, in spite of its democratic consti- 
tution, really has an extremely narrow base; for its meetings 
are very little attended. Of some twelve or fifteen hundred 
electors in a ward only a very slender minority is affiliated to 
the Associations. The others do not want to be on the list; 
they refrain from displaying their political sympathies in 
order not to lose customers in their business, or not to get into 
bad odour with their master, who is on the other side; but the 
majority of the non-affiliated consists simply of the indiffer- 
ent, who do not care an atom for politics, at least between 
the parliamentary elections. Even in places where the politi- 
cal pulse has always beaten strongly, and where the Caucus 
has been a decided success, as at Birmingham, the proportion 
of those affiliated to the party Organizations does not exceed 
eight or ten per cent of the total number of electors. But, few 
as they are, not nearly all of them come to the meetings of their 
ward committees. In the beginning the ward meetings attracted 
people in certain towns; in others the attendance of members 
varied a good deal, until eventually the situation became the 
same every where, that is to say, the ward meetings are deserted, 
as the agents of the Caucus themselves admit frankly enough." 

















1 To the question if the ward meetings were fairly well attended, an Asso- 
ciation secretary in a large town in Lancashire replied: ‘‘ Yes, very well; 
they could all get into this room (a very small one) just as the study of my 


First cHaP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 333 





And it is in these meetings, which contain two to three per cent 
of the whole electorate, that the delegates are chosen who are to 
invest the Caucus with its representative authority. It has been 
my lot to attend ward meetings where there were not even twenty 
persons to elect seventy-five delegates. In these conditions the 
election of delegates is simply a farce. Generally, a list pre- 
pared beforehand is submitted to the meeting and voted in a 
lump. Often, to curtail the proceedings, even the semblance of 
a vote is dispensed with; the old list is adopted again. The 
inevitable result is that all the work falls to a handful of men, 
who are willing to attend to it. At their head is the ward 
secretary, who is the mainspring of the ward Organization. 
Gathering round him more or Tess active personages, whom he 
and the leading Caucus-men have singled out from the crowd, or 
who have become aware of their vocation themselves, he forms 
in conjunction with them a coterie, which manages all the 
political business in the district. Coming to an understand- 
ing beforehand, and always acting in concert, they are able 
to manage even meetings of some size without difficulty, and 
to have the last word in the choice of committee-men or 
delegates, who in consequence follow them implicitly. An 
artisan or small clerk by profession, the ward secretary knows 
all his men, he speaks their language, he has lived for years 
in constant contact with them, he knows how to lay his 
hand upon them. At meetings he speaks little or not at-all, 
but it is he who inspires those who do, beginning with the 
chairman. At the election of delegates to the “hundreds,” 
he “suggests” “good names”; and his list, settled before- 
hand, is generally adopted without modifications. He mod- 
estly leaves the addition of a few names to the wisdom of the 
meeting; if there are fifty persons to be elected, he gives only 
forty-five names. The secretary, as well as the chairman, is 
appointed by the meeting of the ward members, but in prac- 
tice it is the Caucus which more often than not has “sug- 
gested” him in its turn. For the Caucus it is a matter of 
primary importance to have an adroit and energetic secretary 














excellent colleague on the other side is large enough to hold all those who 
come to the ward meetings of his Organization.’’ To keep up appearances 
several agents of the Caucus replied that the ward meetings were ‘‘ fairly 
attended,’’ but on enquiry in the town it turned out that there was room for 
the whole meeting on a sofa. 


334 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rurrp part 





down in the ward; otherwise it is literally paralyzed, so far as 
this ward is concerned. For the Caucus the ward secretary is 
at once an agent for supplying information, and an executive 
officer. He receives instructions from the secretary of the 
Caucus; he is guided, controlled by him, responsible to him. 
The latter can always come and inspect the books of the ward, 
which are kept by the ward secretary, and in which is entered 
all the business relating to the Association and to the elec- 
toral matters of the locality. In a word, there is the closest 
possible co-operation between the ward Organizations and the 
Caucus; and it could not be otherwise. The Conservatives, 
who had, not without grave misgiving, introduced the repre- 
sentative principle into the Organization of the party, had 
thought proper, in more than one place, to exorcise the demo- 
cratic spirit or, what was the equivalent of it in their eyes, the 
spirit of insubordination. By means of provisions in the rules 
which undoubtedly testify to a great faith in the efficacy of 
written or printed matter, they saddled the ward committees 
with the duty of “being responsible,” of “acting under autho- 
rity,” of “referring,” of “reporting” to the executive Com- 
mittee of the central Association. 


II 


The delegates of _all the wards, plus the chairmen_and 
the secretaries of ward committees, constitute the Council 
or_General Committee of the division (often known on the 
Liberal side by the name of “hundreds,” the “200” or the 
“300,” etc.). Nevertheless this representative assembly is far 
from being derived in its entirety from the popular source, 
even in theory. In the first place, as we have seen in the 
Birmingham model, it contains besides the members elected in 
the popular gatherings, a certain number of co-opted members. 
The delegates have power to add to their number, in accord- 
ance with the oligarchic method of appointment of the old 
days, of the corporative system of the Middle Ages, which has 
been preserved down to this day in the municipal institutions 
of England.’ In borrowing this feature from the municipal 

















1 The Town Councils are composed as to two-thirds of members elected by 
the ratepayers, and as to the remaining third of aldermen chosen by the 
councillors themselves. The same system has been adopted for the County 
Councils established in 1888. 


First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 335 








constitution, the Caucus was evidently not quite sure that the 
pure elective principle would suit it, although it was never 
weary of proclaiming its merits. The result proved that the 
creators of the Caucus were right. The Council of the Associa- 
tion has often been able to rectify the choice of the wards by 
means of the co-optation rule. Men who did not commend 
themselves to the ward politicians but who could render ser- 
vices to the party were admitted as co-opted members. Some- 
times they were leaders, persons who brought with them 
experience of men and affairs, a conciliatory disposition and a 
balanced temperament. More often perhaps they were, and 
still are, important subscribers to the funds of the Association 
for whom a place is found in the Council as a reward for their 
liberality. The proportion of co-opted members varies in differ- 
ent Associations; it is 3, 5, or 10 per cent of the total number 
of members and sometimes reaches even a higher figure. A 
good many Associations, however, have given up co-optation in 
order to conform to the strict democratic doctrine. 

Certain Associations, without having recourse to the expedi- 
ent of co-optation, admit without election and as ex officio mem- 
bers people of position or large subscribers. Thus in several 
Associations (especially on the Tory side) the rules give a seat 
on their governing bodies to all the Magistrates, to the mem- 
bers of town councils and other local elective assemblies, such 
as School Boards, Boards of Guardians, who belong to the polit- 
ical party in question. To them are added, and on the same 
footing, the managers or other representatives of clubs, socie- 
ties, and institutions which wear the party colours. There 
are also Associations which take into their councils and com- 
mittees every one who pays a higher subscription, the mini- 
mum of which is fixed by the rules. This minimum varies 
from one guinea to a few pounds, but some Associations are 
ready to accept half a guinea a year. Certain Associations 
bestow on the generous donors even the title of Vice-President, 
which can thus be got for cash. Other Associations, without 
putting all the big subscribers in a lump on the committees, 
provide that this or that proportion of the committee shall be 
chosen from among them, but as their number is not large, 
the selection, if there is one, is very limited. 

The Organizations resort to these methods of swelling their 


\ 


336 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





budget because they are much in want of money. We already 
know, from the history of the Caucus sketched above, that 
the subscription has been practically abolished in most of the 
Liberal Associations. The Conservatives generally require it 
in their rules, even in very formal terms, but they too are 
obliged in practice to deviate from this strictness. Some 
Associations, while giving up compulsory subscription, stipu- 
late that complete membership, especially the right of voting 
at meetings, shall be granted only on condition of paying the 
subscription, but this does not help them, for their adherents 
care more for their money than for complete membership. It 
will be remembered also that in several places an attempt was 
made, but without success, to require payment of the sub- 
scription at least from the members of the Council or Executive 
Committee. Practically payment is optional. Sometimes the 
number of paying members of the Council is one half, some- 
times less; in certain Associations for one member of the 
Council who contributes a small amount there are nineteen who 
do not pay, and there are Organizations in which nobody pays. 
In places where the Organization does not work with great 
regularity, as for instance on the Liberal side in the constitu- 
encies of the vast metropolis, care is even taken to reassure the 
dignitaries of the Caucus. In the printed notices sent to in- 
form them that they have been appointed members of the 
Council there is a memo to the effect that no pecuniary contri- 
bution is attached to the office. Under these circumstances it 
not infrequently happens that the caucuses depend on a few 
individuals for their pecuniary resources, wealthy men who 
supply the greater part of the income of the Organization of 
their party. Often half or more than half of this income comes 
from three or four or five people. The non-paying members 
are however supposed to contribute their share in the form of 
“work” which they are to bring to bear on the elector (by 
ways and means which will be explained later on). And it is 
in view of this “ work” that they consider themselves fully en- 
titled to refuse to pay anything, even a shilling a year only; 
they think that it is quite enough to make a personal without 
a pecuniary sacrifice. 


First cHap.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 337 








Eh 


Theoretically the Gonngl or General Committee is the most 
impotoEmi_and infuential hody in the Organization. As this 
assembly is supposed to embody the mind and the will of the 
adherents of the party, it has consequently to prescribe its 
policy, to notify it to the great ones of the realm, the Minis- 
ters and Members of Parliament, for their guidance, and finally 
to select the parliamentary candidates ' for whom the members 
of the party are bound to vote on the polling-day. But in- 
reality the Executive Committee of the Association nolds_ab 
the_power. Composed, as we have seen, of the office-bearers 
of the Association (president, vice-president, treasurer, secre- 
tary), of the ward chairmen and secretaries, and of a certain 
number of leaders elected in the ward meetings or sometimes 
introduced by co-optation, the Committee includes the most 
active and influential men of the Organization. Not only 
does it set the machine in motion, but it regulates all the 
details of its working, it controls everything that goes on and 
everything which makes up the life of the Association and of 
its ward branches. The selection of the candidates practically 
rests with it. Sometimes this is formally entrusted to it by 
the regulations (on the Tory side). As a general rule the Asso- 
ciation adopts the candidate, but the Executive Committee 
proposes him, and in most cases, not only de facto but even 
de jure, the Association cannot deal with a candidature if it 
has not been previously submitted to and considered by the 
Executive Committee. Even when it consults the Council 
before acting, it still dictates the latter’s decisions. Contain- 
ing all the leaders of the local branches to whose influence 
the delegates to the “hundreds” have become amenable in 
the wards, it is bound to carry with it the assembly, which 
moreover is too large to take its own line. Constituting an 
inner circle in the “hundreds,” the Executive Committee is 
itself again too large to hold undivided power. Consequently 
an inner circle of the second degree is formed within it, at 








1 Occasionally, but very seldom, the name of the candidate adopted is 
submitted for ratification to a special meeting of electors convened ad hoc. 
Again, while giving the Council full power to choose the candidates, certain 
Associations require on these occasions a two-thirds’ instead of a simple 
majority. 

VOL. I—Z 





338 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





one time by a process of natural selection, at another by means 
of the rules which establish “parliamentary,” “financial,” 
“organizing” sub-committees. One of these sub-committees 
engrosses all the powers. For deciding delicate points and 
taking exceptional measures, in regard to expenditure for in- 
stance, which are sometimes shrouded in mystery, at election 
time when the decisive struggle is being fought, the innermost 
inner circle is even a necessity. 

In the large towns the concentration of power _in the hands 
of_a few reaches its extrerne limit, in spite of the autonomist 
doctrine of the Caucus, and exhibits in the most striking way 
its tendency towards oligarchic_government. Since the last 
redistribution of seats in 1885, the large towns no longer form 
single electoral districts with a common representation for the 
whole borough, but are cut up into Divisions of almost equal 
dimensions, with a Member for each.’ To be true to demo- 
cratic principles, the caucuses of large towns had to allow the 
new divisional constituencies the right of acting independently 
in the affairs of the party, a right which they had formerly 
asserted with such energy for the constituencies of the old type, 
the representation of which they had taken upon themselves. 
In consequence each Division obtained an autonomous party 
organization. Nevertheless the old single Associations were 
unwilling to part with their power and tried to live on by the 
side of or rather above the new Divisional Associations. The 
redistribution of seats was hardly passed when the leaders of 
the Caucus, and especially Mr. Chamberlain, looking to the 
future of the institution, recommended the preservation of the 
old organization for such action as concerned the whole town, 
while setting up an Association with the usual powers in each 
constituency. Birmingham at once put this combination into 
practice by grouping the “hundreds” of newly created Divis- 
ions into one body of 2000, which to all appearance was 
simply a federation of independent units of divisional “ hun- 
dreds.” Its powers were very vaguely defined: to give ad- 
vice to the local Associations, to organize political meetings 
for the whole town, etc. But almost everywhere else this plan 
met with a determined resistance in which the moderates and 














1 The Act of 1885, however, has not interfered with some urban constitu- 
encies which returned only two members. 


FIRST CHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 339 
the pure democrats agreed. The former were of opinion that 
the maintenance of a central organization would only perpetu- 
ate the dictatorial practices of the Caucus and prevent the 
growth of a spontaneous political life in the constituencies." 
As for the “stalwarts,” they were against a general organi- 
zation for the whole town, out of democratic jealousy. In the 
face of this opposition the single Association has, in some 
towns, entirely given way to the new divisional Associations. 
In places where it managed to hold its ground, in the torm 
of a Union or federated Association, or with the more modest 
title of United Council or United Committee, consisting only of 
a few representatives of local Associations, it had to encounter 
severe attacks from the autonomists at the beginning. But 
gradually, thanks to the healing action of time and above all 
to the excitement produced by the Home Rule crisis, which 
threw all other controversies into the background, the objec- 
tions raised to the general Associations diminished in energy 
and persistency, and the latter asserted themselves and gained 
a firm footing, as if nothing had happened. In places where 
they had been abolished they were quietly started afresh, 
always with the modest duty of giving advice when they might 
be asked for it, of organizing meetings, etc. But all the essen- 
tial powers of the new divisional Associations were soon more 
or less surreptitiously transferred to the Unions or United Com- 
mittees, and before long there arose in all the large towns an 
unstable equilibrium between the mongrel general organization 
which wields real power, of course with the necessary formal 
precautions, and the Divisional Associations to which power 
belongs as a matter of right. Three, four, five, or seven Divis- 
ions are practically governed by a small party committee. 

The Tory organization of the large towns has been landed 
in the same result, and with all the more ease and certainty 
because it was not, like its rival, upset by the crisis brought 
about by the change in the electoral system. The Conserva- 


1The anxiety with regard to the Caucus was moreover not without its 
influence on the vote of the redistribution of seats. Moderate Liberals as 
well as a good many Tories in the House had, as it would appear, decided to 
adopt the system of splitting the large constituencies into a number of elec- 
toral divisions, in the hope that it would decapitate the Caucus. If Mr. 
Chamberlain’s advice were followed everywhere, this advantage would be less 
certain. 


340 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES bee PART 


tives have not meddled with their old eee Associations. 
By way of conforming to the principle of autonomy in the 
government of the party, which they now profess, they have 
conceded home rule to their adherents in the Divisions, but 
only on paper. Consequently, they have divisional Associa- 
tions, with all the usual parade of presidents, vice-presidents, 
executive committees, etc.; but nothing is done in them with- 
out the advice of the general Organization, especially of its 
executive committee. According to the rules, sometimes they 
“shall” and sometimes they “may” consult it on important 
matters, but this practically amounts to the same thing, the 
option being really a duty. 


IV 


In examining the constituent elements of the Caucus, from 
the ward meetings up to its innermost inner circle, a passing 
notice only has been given to_two persons, who are, neverthe- 
less, the pillars of the temple of the Organization, —the sec- 
retary and the President of the Association. The secretary is 
an official appointed by the executive committee and working 
under its orders. His duties are of the most varied descrip- 
tion. In the first place he is a sort of epitome of the ward 
secretaries. He performs on a large scale for the division or 
the whole town all the operations which the latter carry out on 
a small scale in their little respective departments. He gives 
them instructions, he assists them with his advice, he checks 
and supervises them; he is careful to get good secretaries ap- 
pointed in the ward; he does his best to ensure the election by 
the ward meetings of good delegates to the “ hundreds,” active 
men and skilled in canvassing the voter; he looks after the 
uninterrupted working of the machine, he sees that the ward 
committees do not go to sleep, but act, that is to say, meet and 
hold forth for the greater glory of the party; he goes from one 
ward to another to attend meetings; in a large town he some- 
times has more than one meeting an evening; he arrives, satis- 
fies himself at a glance that all is going on well, and rushes off 
to another meeting; he encourages here, makes remarks there ; 
he allays susceptibilities or local jealousies, he stifles or quells 
mutinies; he has constantly to display energy and tact; above 








First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 341 





all, he must not give himself airs, and he must keep his “head 
clear,’’ — that is, not muddled by drink. Concentrating in his 
hands all the intelligence which reaches him from the wards 
or which he gathers himself as he goes along, he supplies the 
committee with the information of which it stands in need, 
and keeps the member or candidate, with whom he maintains 
a regular correspondence, posted up in the situation. To these 
functions of political newsmonger he adds those of tactician 
and consulting strategist if he is a bit of a philosopher, capable 
of drawing a moral from the facts which he accumulates, and 
consequently of pointing out the ways and means. He attends, 
in the interest of his party, to the electoral register, a highly 
complicated piece of work, as we have already seen; he argues 
before the Registration court in support of the electoral claims 
of members of his party and against those of his political 
opponents. He has many other duties which recur at more or 
less lengthy intervals, but which are none the less of importance. 
He organizes the great party meetings convened from time to 
time, the public demonstrations held on account of an important 
Bill or this or that political event, the receptions given to the 
big men of the party, who do the town the honour of bringing 
it their “authorized eloquence.” He is master of the ceremo- 
nies at banquets of the party, umpire of sports organized under 
its auspices. At election time he is here, there, and everywhere. 
He has to set the “ workers” going, to receive their reports, to 
give them instructions, to attend to the printing and distribution 
of bills and posters, to organize electoral meetings, to see this 
man, write to that, to settle endless details, to cope with end- 
less incidents. Accountable to the Association, he is also re- 
sponsible to the law, for he is generally the election agent, 
whom every candidate is bound by law to employ for the pur- 
pose of conducting the election in conformity with the enact- 
ments directed against bribery and corruption. 

The perfect discharge of all these duties by the secretary 
is not of very common occurrence in practice, the burden 
is too heavy to be borne by everybody. It undoubtedly 
demands a natural bent and a long apprenticeship. The 
Caucus and the conditions which had brought it into exist- 
ence are still of too recent a date in England for the type 
of a perfect secretary to be often met with as yet; but 


342 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [turrp part 





the process of reproduction of the species goes on and ad- 
vances from day to day. The great difficulty of many Asso- 
ciations is their inability to afford a secretary, the expense is 
too great for their slender budget, and they are obliged to put 
up with the voluntary services of the “honorary secretary,” 
who is one of their elective officers. He is not a “ professional” 
but an amateur or a zealot of the party. Generally absorbed in 
his own business or profession, he cannot devote much time to 
the Association. Even if he has no work, if he is simply a 
“gentleman,” he cannot be expected to put his shoulder to the 
wheel, which however is a sine gua non for the proper working 
of a party Organization. 

The President of the Association, on the other hand, need 
not put his shoulder to the wheel. He is more a show person- 
age. If the secretary’s part somewhat recalls Figaro, the chair- 
man has that of the heavy father in the play. He must be 
eminently respectable, very well known in the town, influen- 
tial, and, what is always an advantage, pretty rich or at all 
events well off. The name of the President is a flag, a standard. 
It is his personal prestige, the respect and confidence that 
he inspires, which carry the members of the Association, the 
‘“‘workers,” and keep them loyal and devoted to the Organiza- 
tion. For the voters who are outside the Organization, but 
whose votes have to be secured, the name of the President 
is also a sort of guarantee; for them it has the importance 
of the signature of the firm. But it is not enough for him 
to lend his name, he must exert himself personally as well. 
He has to show himself and speak on every occasion of at 
all a solemn description, at the annual gatherings of the Asso- 
ciation, at the big meetings, etc. He opens the meetings and 
closes them by addresses in which he delivers himself with 
dignity of platitudes on the great cause, the old and glorious 
institutions, the unity of the empire, the union of classes (on 
the Tory side); on progress, on war against privileges and mo- 
nopolies, on the selfishness of the “classes,” and their odious 
resistance to all popular reform (on the Liberal side). Refer- 
ring to this eloquence of the chair, a Tory Caucus secretary 
once defined the chairman as the “man who ean tell the biggest 
lies.” His respectability covers everything and adorns it. 

The Tories, who pay marked attention to respectability, are 


FIRST cHaP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 343 





of course never at a loss for men qualified to fill this position 
of pompous mediocrity. The Liberals have a good supply of 
them too. It will be borne in mind that, at the time of the 
Home Rule crisis in 1886, the hope was expressed that the 
Caucus of the Gladstonian party would not be able to hold its 
ground after having lost its respectable members, who had 
become Unionists. This hope, as we know, has not been 
realized; and, in so far as it was based on the desertion of 
the respectables, it was, as may be pointed out here, not well 
founded. For respectability has nothing absolute or individ- 
ual about it; the somewhat inferior moral qualities and virtues 
of which it is the outcome, or the generalization, however rela- 
tive they may be, are found in every sphere of society. They 
constitute, in every social organization, an inexhaustible store 
which supplies, in the desired form and quantity, the where- 
withal for equipping the men who serve as an example to 
their fellows, who set them the fashion, who make them follow 
in their train. It is, therefore, perfectly justifiable to parody 
the saying, that one is always a reactionary in some one’s eyes, 
by the dictum that one is always somebody’s ideal of respecta- 
bility. When the respectable class has resigned or lost power, 
its place is soon taken by the next succeeding layer of respec- 
tability, which becomes the respectable one with all the attri- 
butes attaching to its influence on the layers below it. There 
may be an interregnum, but it is never of long duration. 
Just as in society a great disturbance may displace the forces 
revolving therein, but very soon these forces or others will 
fall into position, and go long as the machinery is not broken, 
it will continue to work with other men, with new respectables, 
—perhaps not so well as before,—but still it will work. 
When, in consequence of the Home Rule crisis, in 1886, the 
respectables had withdrawn from the Liberal Associations, a 
new category of respectables insensibly was evolved by or arose 
within them, which became the fulcrum of the Organization of 
the party. Besides, the Liberal respectables of a prior date 
had not all withdrawn to a man; some of them had remained, 
being held back either by their genuine sympathy for Home 
Rule, or by their devotion to Mr. Gladstone, and by the diffi- 
culty of breaking old ties, or again by ambition. 

However much the quality of respectability may prepon- 


344 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





derate in the President of the Association, it is not necessarily 
his sole title to the office. Sometimes he unites with it the 
qualification of a fighting politician. In accordance with his 
temperament and his abilities he directs the attack, leads the 
troups into action, or, as strategist, sketches the plan of cam- 
paign and organizes victory, in his study. If the President 
does not possess any of these qualities his place can be sup- 
plied by the honorary secretary, who under this more modest 
title is often the real inspirer and manager of the Association. 
A clever and hard-working paid secretary, an intelligent and 
energetic honorary secretary, and an influential and wealthy 
President form a trio at the apex of the Association which is 
the ideal of every party Organization. 


Vv 


The President with his qualifications of respectability and 
wealth leads the Association also from the point of view of 
social rank. He represents the well-to-do middle class which, 
owing to the well-nigh complete abstention of the aristocracy,’ 
is almost always the superior social element in the party Or- 
ganization. The numerical importance of this element is not 
great. It may be said of the middleclass, especially so far as 
its upper strata are concerned, that it pays little or no heed _to 
the daily life of the Caucus. AJ] it does is to supply the party 
Organizations with a portion of their staff, on the Conservative 
side to a greater, perhaps even a preponderating extent, on the 
Liberal side_in a lesser degree. But % is almost always the 
middle-class men who are the financial supporters of the Organi- 
zations. Consequently the power of the rich over the Asso- 
ciations would be immense if it were not_diminished by their 
own indifference_or their political lukewarmness. A good 
many of them ig fact are satisfied with paying their subscrip- 
tion, from a sense of duty to their party or a feeling of self- 
respect, and attend only the big meetings of the party, for the 
pleasure of seeing their name in the paper the next day among 
the “influential and eminent gentlemen who were on the plat- 


















































1 On the Liberal side in very rare cases, on the Tory side more often, the 
members of the aristocracy consent to fill honorary posts in the Associations, 
but they do not take an active share in their labours. 


FIRST CHAP.]| THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 345 





form.” Leaving the small fry of the Caucus to themselves in 
the daily existence of the Organization, the bigwigs appear on 
the scene when the parliamentary candidate has to be selected, 
and on these occasions they weigh more or less heavily on the 
Associations, especially in the Liberal camp, to such an extent 
that they may be considered the real masters of the Organiza- 
tion. In the Tory Organizations the inherited docility of their 
members prevents them from feeling this weight, while on the 
Liberal side the more timorous political views and the class 
feeling of the plutocrats naturally conflict with the more 
radical inclinations of the rank and file of the party. Never- 
theless, there is seldom a rupture in the Liberal Associations, 
both because the rank and file are perfectly well aware that 
without the money of the middle-class members, the Associa- 
tion of the party, in one of which they are interested, could 
not be carried on, and also owing to the tendency of most of 
the members of the Caucus to gravitate in the social orbit of 
these middle-class people, a tendency which the latter carefully 
foster, as we shall see before long. 

When one speaks of the bulk of the Caucus members, it is 
not popular masses that are really in question. Considering 
their enormous numerical preponderance and the democratic 
basis of the Caucus, it is they who ought to supply its main 
contingents and constitute its motive power; but, in reality, this 
is not the case. True, every Association includes many mem- 
bers who are workmen by trade, often even they form the 
majority in the “hundreds,” but they are hardly representative 
of the working classag, who, taken as a whole, give the Caucus 
a decidedly wide berth. The ward meetings or the meetings of 
. the “hundreds” and all that goes on there have absolutely no 
attraction for them. The consciousness of themselves, of their 
interests, of their wants, which for some years past has begun 
to take a more or less definite shape among, the workmen, dis- 
plays itself more in the sphere of social claims and makes even 
the most quick-witted of them look with distrust on the politi- 
cal Organizations which labour exclusively for the benefit of 
their respective parties or, as some say, of the capitalist class. 
The majority who think little or not at all cannot or will not 
rouse themselves from their habitual not to say normal condi- 
tion of political indifference. In short, the general fact is that 


346 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [tTuHirp part 





the_great mass of workingmen come into contact with the 
Caucus at election time only. 

- Having thus dealt with the various social classes, all of 
which we have seen take little or no part in the Caucus, there 
remains only the lower middle-class to supply the framework 
of its organization; and as a matter of fact, it 1s from this class 
that the men who keep it going are mainly recruited. Shop- 
keepers, clerks, and superior artisans, this is the sphere from 
which most of the active members of the Caucus are taken. 
Their greater eagerness to join in it has a good deal to do with 
theix_moral position in English society. In the absence of 
legal barriers between the classes, the social life of England 
divides them in a harder and faster way than any legislation 
could have done. The gradations of wealth and of social rela- 
tions, so long considered as almost physical lines of demarca- 
tion in England, are still far from having lost this meaning in 
the English society of the present day, engaged though it be 
in democratizing its institutions. The parliamentary Reform 
of 1832, and the great rise of industry and commerce from and 
after 1846, had thrown open the doors of “society” to the 
upper section of the middle class, to the manufacturers and 
the merchants. Those who came next to them in the sog@ial 
scale, especially the small tradesmen, the shopkeepers, were 
left out in the cold and treated rather as social pariahs. The. 
shopkeeper was despised in the first place because he was only 
a shopkeeper, then because as such he was bound to have bad 
manners, and again because he had not even a decent religion ; 
he was almost always a Dissenter, he attended the services of 
a man who was not a gentleman, who had not in his young 
days taken honours at Oxford or joined in athletic sports with . 
young men of good family at Cambridge, like the Rector or 
Vicar of the parish. In proportion as political reforms made 
him the equal of_ this privileged order in the State and the 
levelling tendencies of economic life decreased the distance 
between them in society, the shopkeeper grew more and more 
anxious to step.across the social barrier which confronted him, 
or, to use the English expression, to “force himself into 
society.” The Reform Bill of 1867, by giving him the parlia- 
mentary franchise, undoubtedly raised him in the social scale, 
but the exercise of his electoral right was necessarily an 





























First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 347 





isolated act: the opportunity of voting recurs only once every 
five or six years. The sphere and the duration of the activity 
offered by the Caucus was much more extensive: it set up a 
miniature parliament, the members of which were always in 
full view of their fellow-citizens and invested with powers of 
some importance, extending to politics in its higher aspects. 
The small middle-class man therefore readily availed him- 
self of the Opportunity of rising and_he speedily managed to 
wears a constantly 1 Increasing share in the government of the 
party Associations. It is by no means uncommon to see, both 
in England and Scotland, the caucuses of large towns controlled 
by men who only yesterday were nobodies,. and whose claims 
to the distinction it would be very difficult to specify. Their 
office soon gives them a certain social position, even their name 
gains in syllabic importance, from the Tom Brown or Bill 
Smith which they were for the neighbours of their ward or 
street they blossom out into Thomas Robinson Brown, Esq., or 
William Wellworth Smith, Esq. Once raised to the rank_of 
local ONS they are ripe for municipal honours, and through 
the Caucus they obtain easy admittance into the Town Council 
or other local elective bodies. 

In the Tory Caucus the lower middle class, important_as its 
position is, plays a more rehiring part than in the Liberal Or- 
ganization, The Organization of the Tories having been pre- 
eminently centralizing and aristocratic in the old days, not 
only the lower middle class, but even the upper stratum of that 
class was left outside; it was therefore its turn to come in first, 
and it did so, as we have seen from the historical sketch of the 
Tory Democratic movement, partly by the channel of the new 
representative Organizations. Then the lower middle class is 
much weaker numerically in the Tory than in the Liberal 
camp, for the condition of social inferiority in which it was 
kept threw it into the arms of the party of attack, of the 
Liberals rather than of the Conservatives. Finally, there is 
a reason of another kind for the smaller importance of the 
lower middle class in the Tory Organization: tg_outstrip the 
the worki en_and_are_ready to give the artisans who influ- 












































8 


348 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





VI 


The station of life from which the great majority of the 
caucus-men are taken is enough to show that their intellectual 
standard is not a_very high one. For the most part worthy 
people, earning their livelihood honestly and laboriously as 
shopkeepers or in trades, they are generally devoid of enlight- 
enment. Their political horizon is extremely narrow, and they 
can scarcely widen it by common efforts and reciprocal influ- 
ence, for the display and practice of which the Association 
should offer an opportunity, as the circle formed by the ward 
meetings is deserted by people of higher rank. Called upon to 
produce or single out the men who are to govern the Organiza- 
tion of the party, they bring to the discharge of the task a 
criterion which presents a curious mixture of notions of re- 
spectability and political devotion. Their aspirations in private 
life, their daily struggles of small iadéspeaple witlrthe ambi. 
tion of becoming a little better of and acquiring the dignity 
conferred thereby, incline them to look with respect and admi- 
ration on those who are a few steps higher than themselves. 
The common pohtical creed enhances these feelings, and sup- 


























plies,-so To Speal—a—rational justification Tor them, Conse- 
quently in the eyes of many a member of the ward meeting, 

the most eminent individual is the local bigwig who Com 
bines the requisite qualities of respectability with loyalty 
to the party, who has perhaps a narrow mind, but an open 
hand, who subscribes liberally to the local charities, and whom 
the “party can depend upon.” They “look up to him,” to 
use the characteristic English expression, quite spontaneously, 
and are convinced that nature herself meant him for their 
chairman or president. As regards the other leading members 
of the Organization, such a combination of excellences cannot, 
of course, be expected in their case, but they are bound at all 
events to display a quality which is all the more strictly in- 
sisted on, viz. political zeal. The conception and estimate of 
this quality vary with the different temperament of those who 
form an opinion of it, presenting themselves especially under 
two aspects which reflect the mental condition of two main 
categories into which most of the frequenters of ward meetings 
are divided. The one is composed of restless beings who court 





First cHaP.| THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 349 





opportunities of acting, of holding forth, of agitating, on no 
matter what subject, and for whom this is not only a pleasure 
but a necessity. This category produces the militants, the fight- 
ing men, the orators. Endowed with an inexhaustible flow of 
words and with an imperturbable assurance, they intervene at 
every turn, and do not fail to make an impression on a good many 
of their colleagues. Side by side with them there is the calm 
and sedate section. Their political creed is more internal than 
external, and encompassing it with the uniform and regular 
devotion of a cult, they really mingle with it something of their 
Church religiousness, which is made up of a certain amount of 
sentiment and a good deal of ritual routine, the strict observ- 
ance of which constitutes the just and God-fearing man in their 
eyes. Being attuned to this moral pitch, they are naturally 
disposed to consider the turners of the party praying-wheels, 
who are to be found in every Organization, as the most worthy 
priests of the political divinity. These are first and foremost 
the persons who attract attention by their assiduity; they 
never miss a meeting, they are always there as if on duty, one 
is sure to find them in their places, in the front row. They 
follow the proceedings of the meetings, and intervene in them 
with the regularity of automatons. Does somebody make a 
proposal which in accordance with established practice must 
be seconded by another member, one of this assiduous con- 
tingent rises as if touched by a spring, and declares with his 
most solemn air that he seconds it. Is there a motion to be 
brought forward or other business of a formal nature to be 
taken up, these personages can invariably be depended on. 
This alacrity and assiduity commend themselves to many of 
the frequenters of the ward meetings as much as the passionate 
ardour of the others ; in their eyes it is unimpeachable proof 
of political zeal and the criterion of an “earnest politician.” 
These two main categories which the ward meetings put for- 
ward to serve in the “ hundreds” and in the committees of the 
Organization, the restless and the staid members, supply the 
Caucus, the small group of leaders which arises within it, with 
a material which is most valuable because it is mouldable in 
the highest degree. Different and even diametrically opposed 
temperaments, they have this property in common, that they 
are ready to receive an impulse and not to give it. The former, 


350 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





who are only too delighted to start, go off at full gallop at the 
first touch of the spur, prepared to run down and trample on 
everything which crosses their path. The latter, whose mood 
is anything but adventurous and headstramg, are never safer 
than when walking in the beaten track. Men of these types, 
when brought together in fixed grooves and for a public object, 
spontaneously create an atmosphere eminently favourable to 
the growth of an uncompromising and inflexible political ortho- 
doxy. But their orthodoxy, springing as it does from their 
temperament, is not immured in an unchangeable creed, in a 
series of unalterable propositions, to which the mind, with more 
or less discernment, binds itself in perpetuity. It is rather a 
mental condition, a constant inclination towards conformity 
with the attitude of those who are supposed to be the deposi- 
taries of the faith. It is like a river-bed with steep banks 
which receives and holds the streams descending from the 
heights above. Unbending in its course, the orthodoxy is 
variable as regards its contents. A fresh strong current can re- 
new and change them to such an extent as to make the devotees 
burn their idols of the day before, in the very name of this 
orthodoxy. ‘To take an example in the recent life of the cau- 
cuses: before 1886 all the Liberal Associations were opposed 
to the Irish claims. Sympathy for Ireland in a public man was 
an unpardonable crime in their eyes, as we know by the history 
of Joseph Cowen. The question of self-government for Ire- 
land could hardly be discussed even. In a large town of the 
north, at the “ Liberal 900,” a member of Irish extraction one 
day brought forward a motion in favour of Home Rule, and, 
with the exception of his seconder, not a single person was 
found in the whole assembly to support it. A few months 
afterwards all the caucuses were fighting for Home Rule with 
a veritable frenzy, and denouncing every opponent of the Irish 
Bill as a traitor to Liberalism and almost to humanity. 

When imbued with party orthodoxy, this twofold tempera- 
ment impulsive and inert makes spontaneity and independence 
of re TER rs 

of the question, Al the more strongly does it kick against 
criticism from others, against opposition. Opposition irritates 
and offends one section like an obstacle which stops them in 
their course; it destroys the peace of mind of the others by 














FIRST CHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 351 





exposing them to the risk of having to take their own line. 
Consequently, as we have also seen from examples of the in- 
tolerance and the uncompromising ways of the caucuses on 
many occasions, cgntradiction or free criticism had_and_still 
have difficulty in obtaining a hearing. A man who adopts an 
independent attitude or looks at things from his own point of 
view in the Caucus generally finds himself in such an extremely 
small minority that he only succeeds in making himself ridicu- 
lous. If he does not yield to discouragement himself, he is 
easily and quickly made to do so. The turners of the party 
praying-wheels of a higher rank in the “hundreds,” the peremp- 
tory henchmen of the Caucus, make short work of him, and the 
rest add their Amen with the conviction of regular worshippers 
or of crowds which re-echo the cheer which has burst from the 
foremost ranks. 

The caucuses, however, were and are true to the situation 
in looking on objectors as wet blankets, for a gathering of 
the “hundreds” cannot be a debating arena, it is too large 
for that. <A collection of several hundreds of persons like 
that of ward delegates whose intellectual discipline and 
dialectical habits necessarily leave a good deal to be desired, 
sinks inevitably into a crowd, a mob. It is only capable 
of showing approval or disapproval and can never elaborate 
ideas. Consequently, as soon as the “hundreds” felt their 
way, they lost the quality of deliberative bodies with which 
they were invested by theory and became demonstrative 
assemblies. 

This character of the “hundreds” naturally communicates it- 
self to the eloquence of the speakers at these meetings, they 
aim more at effect and at strength of language than at the per- 
suasive efficacy of argument. The elements of which the meet- 
ings are habitually composed help to pitch the key of the 
speeches: as the personages high in the social scale who belong 
to the Organization hardly ever come to the ordinary meetings, 
the rank and file can throw off all restraint and they give free 
vent to their ardour and expend it in language which is all the 
more forcible because as often as not they will have to carry 
out the wishes of the magnates who hold the purse-strings of 
the Organization. In addition to this, in the Liberal caucuses 
there is a special element which cultivates, by vocation so to 





352 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





speak, a vehement and aggressive style, to wit, the Noncon- 
formist deacons and preachers, who are generally laymen with 
a small shop or in some other humble walk of life and who 
preach on Sundays or at religious evening meetings. Ranking 
amongst the most conspicuous speakers at’ the Caucus, they 
serve it with the sharp-edged oratorical weapons which they 
are accustomed to use against their professional enemy, the 
devil. 


Given these intellectual and moral tendencies of most of the 
members of the “hundreds,” so unfavourable to spontaneous 
and independent action, this obliteration of the deliberative 
character of great Caucus gatherings unable to stand the shock 
of ideas, and finally the organization of authority in the Asso- 
ciations resulting in “inner circles” formed by an unceasing 
process of filtration or natural selection, it is hardly possible 
for the “hundreds” to be really anything but registering as- 
semblies, for their proceedings not to be arranged beforehand, 
or, to adopt the slang political term used to describe them, 
“cut and dried.” In the ward we have already seen the ward 
secretary surrounded by his ring of associates concocting the 
business of the party behind the scenes. The same thing is 
repeated at every stage of the Organization; throughout it js 
regularly done by a handful of persons known in the language 
of the day by the name of wire-pullers. The ward secretary 
is their prototype who attains his highest development at the 
centre of the Caucus, where the wire-pullers, those who almost 
alone deserve this significant title, conduct their operations. 
They lean on the ward wire-pullers while they themselves are 
linked to the central London Organization as it were by elec- 
tric currents which the wire-pullers of the Great Caucus set in 
motion in their turn. Thus the whole Organization eventually 


ends in being a hierarchy of wire-pullers. 














Vit 


But being, as they are, of different rank and social position, 
what induces them to combine for common action? What is 
it that impels them to draw near to each other, the middle- 
class magnates, the head wire-pullers, and the small fry of the 


—_ er 


First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 353 





wards? Where is the motive power which sets them going? 
Tt resides in the two feelings which between them generally fill 
the human mind —the feeling of duty and that of self-love. 
We have already obtained glimpses of this among the caucus- 
men when studying their temperament, their natural tendencies. 
The Organization fosters and develops these feelings so as_to 
make them aliving and_acting force. To the solicitude fer 
interests other than one’s own, to the devotion to something 
higher than_one’s self which every human being feels the n 

of. displaying, the political Organization offers the party for an 
object, as_alone able to make the country, the nation, happy. 



































* And this premise being accepted by the elector through the 


fact of his joining the Association, the latter converts his 
natural feeling of duty into political duty, and having con- 
stituted itself the guardian thereof, extracts from it obliga- 
tions towards itself. The members of the party higher in 
the social scale who are supposed to have political convic- 
tions, or even political knowledge, derive more or less spon- 
taneously from them the stimulus to action on behalf of the 
party, the willingness to devote themselves to the work of 
the Organization, including even the least attractive jobs of the 
party; but for the average individual who forms the bulk of 
the Caucus contingents, the abstract notion of duty would not 


‘be enough. The Organization of the party supplements it 


therefore after the fashion of ecclesiastical Organizations, 
of Churches, which in order to keep the faithful in the proper 
path make them join in observances instituted for their sake. 
Similarly the Caucus inculeates their duty on its members by, 
to use a more profane term, regular performances. These are 
in the first place the periodical gatherings; then the _extra- 
ordinary meetings on questions which come before Parliament 
or public opinion, or for the reception of a political personage 
who is visiting the locality, or of the Member for the constitu- 
ency who is to make a speech; demonstrations organized in con- 
nection with an important event; or fétes and entertainments. 
We already know by what we have seen in the first grade of 
the Organization, in the wards, what great importance the 
Caucus attaches to its members assembling methodically, how 
it encourages them to meet simply for the purpose of being 
together. The same system is pursued with regard to the 
VOL. I—2A 


354 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES | [ruirp parr 





“hundreds.” Every Organization which works well tries to 
multiply the opportunities and pretexts for meetings, and their 
frequency is one of the best proofs of its vitality. It is of no 
consequence if the discussion does not, as has been pointed 
out, fulfil the required conditions; the great thing for those 
present is not to exchange ideas or engage in dialectical en- 
counters, but to feel that they are a crowd, to lead each other 
on, to rouse and excite one another. 

The great difficulty which the caucuses experience in carry- 
ing out this mental drill is in the first place the apathy of the 
electors, with which every political organization has to con- 
tend; but jt lies above all in the fact that the normal duties 
of the Associations do not take up enough time to adequately 
serve the purpose. And it is partly from the natural necessity 
of fillmg the vacuum, and not only from infatuation, that the 
Associations do not rest content with the work of organi- 
zation proper, but meddle with politics on a large scale. On 
the. pretext of giving expression to the ideas of the party on 
the questions of the day, they had at an early stage begun 
to seize every opportunity of sitting in judgment and _ pro- 
nouncing sentence. At one time the subject is supplied them 
by the attitude of the Ministry on this or that question, at 
another by the conduct of the Opposition; sometimes it is 
the speech delivered by one statesman, sometimes the Bill 
brought forward by another. A meeting is held, a debate, 
confined to what is needful or travelling beyond it, takes 
place, and a resolution is solemnly passed. This performance 
is one of the favourite pastimes of the caucuses. It helps 
them to fill up their spare moments and at the same time 
feeds within the members’ breasts the sacred flame of the 
party interests which they think are entrusted to their keep- 
ing. The passing of the resolution, which generally does not 
mince matters, furnishes them and everybody else with evi- 
dence of their acuteness and their energy, and imbues them 
with the pleasing consciousness of having discharged an im- 
portant duty. 


For eyen among th : ing members of the Caucus 
he ipations of amowr-propre are closely connected with 


the feeling of duty, just as with the general run of men the 


two feelings are grafted on and intertwined with one another 























FIRST cHAP.]| THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 355 





when it is not the first which, as is more often the case, alone ° 
supplies the sap and produces the plant. In like manner, 
when it is not by the bait of a duty to be performed or by the 
illusion of a duty, it is by procuring its members satisfactions 
of amour-propre, which encourage or flatter their more or less 
legitimate or more or less frivolous and vulgar pretensions 
and aspirations, that the Caucus keeps a hold on its men. 
These satisfactions of different kinds form a sort of scale, cor- 
responding with the grades into which the staff of the Caucus 
is divided. First comes the enjoyment of power, of influence, 
of the pleasure of dabbling in important affairs. While very 
fond of it themselves, the head wire-pullers, in order to suc- 
ceed, are obliged to let the small local leaders have a taste of 
it. And with this view they “consult” them, and by asking 
their advice and their consent on matters generally decided 
beforehand by a few persons, they give them the illusion that 
it is they, the small leaders of wards, who are the real masters. 
To the enjoyment of power often wielded behind the scenes 
are added the visible distinctions which it procures or confers. 
For the higher order of wire-pullers these consist of public 
dignities, for some, perhaps, of admission to the House of 
Commons, with the two magic letters “M.P.” after’ their 
name; but much more often it is two other letters, of more 
modest appearance, which are the reward of a prominent local 
wire-puller, — “ J.P.,”” — which stands for Justice of the Peace. 
For some time past, in fact, this honorary office has been a 
sort of political current coin for recompensing party services, 
and it is sometimes demanded as a due or even made a con- 
dition of the applicant’s co-operation.1. Although more com- 
mon, the title of “J.P.” cannot be very widely distributed 
(the number of Justices of the Peace appointed every year 
is barely a thousand), but for one person who wins the prize 
there are five-and-twenty who hope to get it. The great ob- 
. ject of the party Organization is, of course, to raise hopes 


1JIn the towns the appointments of Justices of the Peace have always been 
affected by political considerations, but party spirit did not run so high on 
the subject as it has done for the last ten years. The appointments for the 
towns were often made after taking the opinion of the Town Council. The 
Town Councils are no longer consulted, and it is the recommendations of 
the party Organizations which determine the choice made by the Lord Chan- 
cellor (who changes with the party in power). 


356 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





in the breasts of as many people as possible. Their version 
of the classic divide et impera is: hold out hopes if you wish 
to reign. 

The dignity of J.P. 1s generally reserved, even in the 
towns, where there is no property qualification for it as in the 
counties, for the members of the well-to-do middle class which 
lead the Organization of the party (the last Liberal Govern- 
ment raised several workingmen to this office). To the others, 
and especially to the lower middle class, whose important posi- 
tion in the Caucus we have noticed, the latter brings consider- 
ation in a less direct but very real way. In examining the 
social elements which go to make up the Caucus, we have seen 
how the small middle-class man grows in importance, mounts 
the social ladder in his own fashion, develops from Bill 
Smith into William Wellworth Smith, Esq., or even becomes a 
Town Councillor, thanks to the Caucus which introduces him 
into public life. 

Besides the influence, genuine or illusory, and the consides— 
ation which the caucus-man derives, or thinks he derives, 
directly from his title of member of the “hundreds,” the bulk 
of his colleagues appreciate just as much the satisfaction of 


being’in good company within the Association, which perhaps 


contains more than one person belonging to the upper ranks 
GY the milidie class and, penerally speaking. leadine ion, 
Hence the importance (exhibited on the occasion of the crisis 
of 1886), for the Association of having some respectable mem- 
bers, —they are a sort of magnet which draws the vulgum 
pecus. And this is also why it has been noted that the personal 
position of the President, with his qualities of respectability, 
is all-important for ensuring the loyalty of the members to the 
Association. 

Even these motives, however, are of too ney a nature 
for many of the members of the Association; in their case 
there is added the attraction of personal contact with the ¢ 
local swells of the party, into which they are brought by 
virtue of their position in the Caucus. This contact arises, 
perhaps, at very long intervals, and is not always direct; but 
that makes it all the more appreciated. To stimulate the zeal 
of its “workers,” the Association puts them in the way of 
such meetings. It invites them on certain days or gives them 























FIRST CHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 357 





a permanent ticket of admission,’ to the great local club of 
the party frequented by the richest, consequently, in their 
eyes, the most eminent Liberals or Conservatives; and not 
only by those who belong to the Association, but by a good 
many others who do not deign to take an interest in the hum- 
bler work of the party, but who use the club for the sake of 
the comfort and other advantages which it offers. The small 
folk of the ward — office-bearers of the Caucus —can thus 
breathe the atmosphere of this highly select circle, and, dressed 
in their best clothes, sit in a good armchair and smoke their 
cigarette on even terms with the real members of the club, 
or even do so in their immediate society, “have a smoke with 
them,” and exchange a few remarks with them into the bar- 
gain. Finally, from time to time the members are entertained 
at receptions or parties given specially and exclusively for 
their benefit, such as the “soirées,” or “teas,”’ which the Presi- 
dent of the Association graciously offers in his drawing-room 
or in his garden, or the fétes and picnics organized by the Asso- 
ciation. ‘ 

All these satisfactions of amour-propre have the effect of 
overcoming in who are alive to them thepr indiference 
ORES in renal the affairs of the party, which 
forthwith become their affgirs, or of intensifying the zeal of 
those who are “politicians” by temperament. The honour con- 
ferred on both sections, the dignity with which they are in- 
vested, put them under obligations to the party, saddle them 
with responsibility to its Organization. It is this combination 
of feelings that the managers of the Caucus trade upon. And 
if the Councils of the Associations are so large as to reach the 
total of six hundred or eight hundred members and more, if 
their numbers have been repeatedly increased it is due to this 
calculation that, by bringing honours within the reach of a 
great many people, their services are likely to be obtained. 

It is true that satisfactions springing from gratified self- 
esteem or from the fulfilment of public duties are not the 
only advantages which the personages of the Caucus gain from 

















1 Sometimes known by the name of ‘‘ special membership ticket,’’ notably 
among the Tories who are fond of social demarcations and labels, and dis- 
tributed particularly to the members of the Caucus who perform the important 
duties of ward secretaries. 


358 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





their position. In the case of many of them_this position gives 
them_a gratuitous advertisement in their business; by their ac- 
tivity in the Caucus they form useful connections which they 
would not have acquired by other means. Some of the members 
of the “ hundreds” derive more direct and tangible profits from 
it by the orders which they receive from the Association itself. 
These are the printers and other trades-people, such as licensed 
victuallers and purveyors who contract for the fétes and picnics 
of the Organization. Finally, there is a class of members who 
make a little money in a still less indirect way. The ward 
secretaries, especially among the Tories, are often paid a little 
and also get small perquisites out of the money allowed them for 
office expenses, etc. A greater number, as will be seen later on, 
are paid by the day, at a modest rate, for the work done for the 
Association and the party. Here again it is the Tories, much 
richer than their rivals, who spend the most money in this 
legitimate or illicit manner. But when all is said and done, 
the members of the English Caucus who reap material benefit 
from it, in one form or another, are only a minority. Most of 
the members of the hundreds, and of their fellow-workers in 
the wards, are governed by considerations which are more 
of a sentimental description. 

The task of the wire-pullers, who are expected to satisfy 
and flatter the self-esteem of the caucus-men, has also its in- 
verse side: no less care must be taken not to offend suscepti- 
bilities. Not only is it necessary, as in every human society, 
to reckon with the moods, the passions, the individual idiosyn- 
crasies, which now and again find full scope, but with the spe- 
cial touchiness which is the pendant of the very sentiments 
with which the Caucus inoculates these people in order to 
keep a firmer hold on them. The more small vanities are 
flattered, the more they are inclined to raise their heads. The 
caucus-man who takes himself seriously, or thinks himself of 
importance, is naturally jealous of his dignity, and prompt to 
take offence. Inthe great towns the position of the wire-pullers 
of the Caucus in this respect has become much more delicate 
since 1885, in consequence of the subdivision of the Organiza- 
tion into several divisional Associations, because this transfor- 
mation has increased the number of small important personages 
who have to be managed. It appears that it is the members 











FIRST CHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 359 





belonging to the working class who exhibit the most suscepti- 
bility; always afraid of being trifled with and conscious of 
the strength which numbers give them in the electorate, they 
are more inclined than the others to be restive without rhyme 
or reason. To cope with the self-asserting members the wire- 
pullers need a great_deal of skill, tact, and sometimes energy 
as well. They, and especially the Secretary of the Organiza- 
tion, who is the drudge of these members, must often let people 
talk without ever allowing them to go further, must not get 
angry at the wrong moment, not provoke any one, and in gen- 
eral not be fussy. It is the inevitable price to be paid for 
the authority wielded by them over the members of the Asso- 
ciation, just as the latter in their turn cannot escapé from 
the obligations incumbent on them with regard to the Caucus. 
There is a tacit agreement between them, founded, like every 
contract, on the principle of do ut des. The one have the 
uninterrupted enjoyment of the rights corresponding to these 
obligations, in the form of manifold satisfactions which the 
Caucus procures them, while the others, the managers of the 
Caucus, receive on its behalf the return, which is the absolute 
devotion of the caucus-men in regard to the Organization, or, 
to use the proper term, discipline. Here we have the gist, the 
binding clause of the contract in question. The long flowery 
preamble, and the grand oratorical developments of the agree- 
ment about the influence of the masses, the autonomy of the 
party, etc., as well as the commentaries made thereon by its 
skilful expounders, only led up to this result. There is no 
difference in this respect between the Liberal and the Tory 
Organization, except perhaps that in the former it is discipline 
with phrases, and in the latter discipline without or with few 
phrases. The discipline, in fact, is almost military. Once in 
the ranks the caucus-man must obey orders and faithfully per- 
form the part assigned to him, otherwise he is summarily dealt 
with; he is flung back into the crowd from out of which the 
Caucus had taken him. 

Discipline, however, cannot be absolute in the Caucus. First 
of all must be deducted all those who are not amenable to it 
by temperament as opposed to the majority who are naturally 
disposed to submit to it. Some of them, without exactly wish- 
ing to stop the coach, belong to the category of individuals 








360 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





who can never be satisfied, and who instinctively run counter 
to the general opinion. The others are men of really inde- 
pendent mind who find their way, although in exceptional 
instances, into the “ hundreds,” and sometimes even spring up 
in the executive committees. If these disturbers of the gen- 
eral harmony cannot be brought to terms or silenced, an effort 
is made to get rid of them, and it is left to the ingenuity of 
the wire-pullers to find the means of doing it. Both catego- 
ries, however, are only a minority, sometimes a very small 
one. The real question of discipline arises in regard to the 
majority. Based as 1t is on the reciprocity of real or imagi- 
nary services or advantages, discipline here too cannot be so 
perfect as not to be infringed. There can always be per- 
sons who consider that the reciprocity is not complete, that 
the sacrifices which are demanded of them are too great. No 
doubt the uncritical and sluggish temperament of the great 
majority of the caucus-men, as already known to us, is not 
calculated to make them keep their eyes fixed on the oscilla- 
tion of the two scales, but on the other hand there is too large 
a crop of local jealousies, petty susceptibilities, and vulgar — 
vanity in the Caucus for these not to show themselves. <Ac- 
cordingly the Caucus has its mutinies, which break out from 
time to time in the wards, even among the Tories in whom the 
spirit of subordination is however deeply rooted. The acts of 
indiscipline or attempts at revolt sometimes assume a general 
character, being committed in the name of principles, as for 
instance was the case with the disputes between the head wire- 
pullers and the divisional Associations of large towns. Some- 
times, and more often, they do not go beyond personal dissatis- 
faction and pique breaking out in a trivial form, which reveals 
only too clearly the smallness of mind and obtuse infatuation 
of the ordinary caucus-man. For instance, a Chairman of a 
local branch of the Association appears at a great meeting of 
the party without his ticket, which he has obligingly given to 
a friend; being refused admittance by the doorkeeper, who 
sticks to his orders, he flies into a rage with the Caucus and 
sends in his resignation. Another caucus-man leaves the 
Association because his parliamentary candidate has not shaken 
hands with him. But after all, these small incidents and the 
quarrels of a more serious nature which arise in the Caucus are 








First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 361 





rather the exception confirming the rule which makes discipline 
the basis of the Organization and the principle of its existence. 


caucus-men and the necessity of squaring them does not of 
course make the Caucus very attractive to men of delicate feel- 
ing, no more than its cut and dried type of proceedings has any 
charm for independent minds. When the machine of the Can- 


CUS. began to_ work with a certain amount of re gularity, the _ 


P eraries assigned 


the members of the Association soon siriek men of an inde- 
pendent and thoughtful turn of mind, especially in the -biberat 
camp, where the Organization, being of older standing, devel- 
oped to a greater extent at an earlier stage, and where the spirit 
of criticism and of doubt is more widely diffused. At the same 
time the small fry of the wards were continually rising to the 
surface. The consciousness Of their isolation and the dislike 
of isc elt by several men of higher position 
them leave the Caucus, and, with the co-operation of events, in 
* most localities a real deterioration in the quality of the staff of 
( the Organization set in, including even the wire-pullers them- 
selves, to such an extent that at the present time it often repre- 
sents, according to the description of an honorary a, of 
an Association, “anything but the cream of society.” 

The events which had contributed to this result were, as has 
been said, of a manifold kind. There was the Home Rule 
crisis, which served as a more or less plausible pretext to many 
people for withdrawing from active political life. Then again 
in the large towns there was the subdivision of the party Or- 
ganization into several divisional Associations, which arose, as 
we have already seen, out of the establishment of single mem- 
ber constituencies. The friction which ensued on this occa- 
sion, especially on the Liberal side, between the new Associa- 
tions and the general Association (of the town) deprived the 
ca everal wire- : im 1al 
moral stamp. Some retired to their tents disgusted at the sus- 
picion with which they were regarded by the politicians of 
Divisions. Others did the same because they considered that 
their position in the Organization was not good enough; after 
having dealt with the affairs of the party for the whole town 


( This inteilectual and moral temperament of most of the 



































362 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





they thought it a come-down to take the same place in a Divis- 
ion. All these withdrawals left the local element, that is the 
ward people, whom the mere subdivision of the Organization 
invested with a new and very considerable importance, in pos- 
session of the field. This transformation at once raised every 
ward leader from being tenth or fifteenth at Rome to being 
first in his village. Instead of one Chairman of Association 
there were now four, five, or seven, and a corresponding num- 
ber of Vice-Chairmen, honorary secretaries, etc. This set of 
small personages admitted to a share in the management of 
the party, and full of their own importance, gave a marked 
impulse to a parochial spirit of a narrow, petty, and illiberal 
kind, measuring everything, men and things, by its own 
standard. 


VIII 


The description of the Organization of parties which has 
just been given was concerned with its predominant type as 
developed especially in the “parliamentary boroughs.” The 
towns known by this name form, as we are aware, a Class of 
electoral divisions distinct from that of the “counties.” This 
duality of electoral constituencies is an outcome of the special 
conditions amid which popular representation grew up in Eng- 
land. When summoning representatives from the shires, which 
were from time immemorial the great local politico-adminis- 
trative unit, “to serve in Parliament,” the kings also singled 
out certain towns which were to return members to the House 
on the same footing as the counties. The boroughs which were 
the object of the royal favour became, at the end of the parlia- 
mentary elections, independent of the counties of which they 
geographically formed part. All the other towns were included 
in the “county constituency,” composed of the geographical 
county minus the “parliamentary boroughs” situated within 
its area. When the Reform Bill of 1832 attacked the old 
electoral edifice, it not only lowered the voting qualification but 
it also effected a readjustment of political power between the 
towns directly represented in Parliament and those which were 
not so; by means of a “redistribution of seats” it gave a 
special representation to a good many towns which had become 
of importance, notably in consequence of the wonderful rise 


FIRST CHAP.]| THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 363 





of industry, and disfranchised the insignificant and decayed 
boroughs (rotten boroughs) which had returned Members 
by virtue of their historic right. Stripped of their repre- 
sentation, these boroughs were “ merged in the counties,” that 
is to say annexed to the county constituencies. The further 
extension of the suffrage by the subsequent Reform Bills of 
1867 and 1884-5 was effected on each occasion in the same 
manner: the qualification was once more lowered while several 
towns were raised to the rank of “ parliamentary boroughs” 
with a special representation; or “ parliamentary boroughs” 
already in possession of the franchise as well as “counties” 
obtained an additional number of Members, corresponding to 
the enhanced importance of their population, and this at the 
expense of small towns which were ruthlessly merged. Thus, 
in spite of the levelling character of the Reform Bills, the 
double type of electoral constituencies has been preserved: of 
“boroughs,” that is to say, exclusively urban constituencies, 
and of “counties,” 7.e. rural constituencies with a more or less 
considerable addition of more or less important urban agglom- 
erations. Even the introduction, in 1885, of the system of 
one-member constituencies, in pursuance of which each county ' 
as well as each large parliamentary borough which had hitherto 
been single electoral divisions with a varying number of Mem- 
bers were divided into almost equal parliamentary Divisions, 
did not obliterate this duality. It is preserved not only prac- 
tically by the difference in the economic and social conditions 
of the “boroughs” and the “counties,” but also by the law, 
which gives the right of voting on conditions which are not 
identical in both. 

The result is that the organization of parties in the 
“counties” is still, even since 1885, on quite a different footing 
to that of the “boroughs.” The principal peculiarities which 
give the “county” constituencies their special character are 
the great extent of their area combined with the very unequal 
and sparse distribution of the population, the heterogeneous 
nature of the electorate, and the political youthfulness, not to 
say infancy, of the rural section of it, admitted only yesterday 


1 It is true that several counties were subdivided before 1885, but these sub- 
divisions, to the number of two or three, were not yet single-member con- 
stituencies. 


364 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





to public life — all conditions unfavourable to the growth of a 
robust extra-constitutional political organization. Neverthe- 
less, the Caucus tried to introduce the “ Birmingham plan” 
into the counties before 1885, but the experiment was not very 
successful. The Association started for each county on a 
would-be representative basis often amounted merely to a com- 
mittee with its head-quarters in the county-town. Its members 
were gentlemen, landed proprietors, men in liberal professions, 
with a small sprinkling of trades-people. Instead of elective 
branches which the Association ought, in conformity with the 
doctrine, to have had in each locality, very often there was only 
one person who consented to look after the affairs of the party 
in a spirit of self-sacrifice. This person was a tradesman, a 
schoolmaster, occasionally a Magistrate. The members of the 
committees were assisted in the routine duties of organization by 
a few paid agents attached to the Association of the county and 
who went about from one village to another. The gentlemen 
residing in the locality did not take an active part in the work 
of the Organization. The Organization of the Conservatives 
was still less democratic. Their Associations were simply small 
committees which represented almost exclusively the old rul- 
ing classes. True, the Tories had “Workingmen’s Associa- 
tions” in the large villages with the squire as chairman and his 
steward as secretary. But the most obvious result of their 
political activity consisted of an annual dinner honoured with 
the presence of the local gentry. In small villages it was the 
clergyman and schoolmaster by themselves, or even one of the 
two, who represented the whole Organization of the Tory party. 
The work of checking the register, of attending to electoral 
claims, etc., was, as in the good old days, in the hands of a 
solicitor who made it over to his clerk. It must not be for- 
gotten, however, that in spite of the great extent of the county 
constituencies it was easier, up to 1885, to deal with the voters 
in them, owing to their limited number. 

The year 1885 opened a new political era in the “counties.” 
The Reform Act, by lowering the qualification, added nearly 
two millions of rural voters to the electorate; every occupier of 
a cottage obtained a vote. Of course the labourer invested with 
full political rights forthwith became an object of deep interest 
to the Organizations of the parties. The Liberals, who had 


First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 365 





carried the extension of the suffrage to the rural masses, lost 
no time in proposing, through the medium of the Caucus, to 
complete it by conceding to them a voice in the management 
of the party, by means of representative Associations. | With- 
out denying the difficulties of applying the representative 
principle to the county districts, they expressed the opinion 
that ‘“ the organization could be brought to the same symmetry 
and perfection in them as in the towns,” as Mr. Schnadhorst 
observed.' It must be said at once that up to the present time 
experience is far from having converted these expectations 
into a reality ; it has only demonstrated more forcibly that the 
representative and elective principle has no inherent efficacy. 
No doubt the subdivision of the single constituency of the 
county into several electoral divisions has greatly facilitated 
the labours of the Organization, it is more easy to grasp the 
new Division, but even its more limited area does not present 
sufficient elements for an electoral extra-constitutional organiza- 
tion. In a good many parishes it is not only impossible to 
start an elective Association, but there is hardly the where- 
withal for forming a small committee. One rural Division, for 
instance, has more than a hundred parishes, the majority of 
which possess barely forty or fifty voters apiece. Another 
Division is almost as familiar with political life and electoral 
strife as if it formed part of the Muscovite empire. There are 
Divisions in which there have not been more than two con- 
tested elections in the space of half a century.? In these 
backward districts, where stagnation and social tradition reign 
supreme, the position of the Liberal Organization was a pecul- 
iarly delicate one up to a very recent period, if it is not so 
still. If its adherents in the villages were demonstrative, they 
incurred the animosity of the representatives of the old ruling 
classes, almost all Tories. The economic condition of the small 
farmer or day-labourer is too precarious for him to wantonly 
jeopardize it by defying the squire and the parson. Often 
he has no habitation of his own, all the cottages belong to the 
landlord, who lets them without a lease and can turn out his 
tenants at any moment. ‘Consequently in places where the 


1 County Organization, by F. Schnadhorst, Birmingham, 1885 (?). 
2 For instance, the Rutland Division has been contested twice since 1841. 
(See F. H. Macalmont’s Poll Book.) 


366 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp Part 





materials of a Liberal committee exist it is sometimes a very 
knotty point to decide whether to form one or abandon the 
idea in order not to expose its members to social ostracism. In 
a good many Divisions the Liberals consider systematic ab- 
stention the most prudent course, to prevent their most zeal- 
ous adherents from becoming known. The representative of 
a Liberal Association, alluding to this position of affairs, de- 
scribed it as follows: “Our Association is a secret society.” 
Of course this state of things is rather the exception than the 
rule, and even as an exception it is becoming a reminiscence of 
the past. When making my first rounds, in 1888-1889, I often 
heard complaints of the political terrorism exercised by the 
squire and the parson, to the extent that the electors were 
afraid of attending the Liberal meetings or went to them by 
night, one by one, like conspirators. But during my last trip 
to the country districts (in 1895) I was able to ascertain that 
this was no longer the case. The labourer has grown inde- 
pendent and makes no secret of it before the farmer, who ac- 
cepts the new situation and placidly tells people himself on 
market-day that so many of his labourers have voted “against 
him,” that is against the party he prefers. It appears that 
the incessant migration of young people into the towns with 
which rural England is afflicted, and the agricultural distress, 
have had a good deal to do with this small political revolution : 
the number of agricultural labourers having perceptibly dimin- 
ished, the farmer is glad to get any and takes good care not | 
to worry them about their “ politics”; similarly the landlords, 
who now have so much difficulty in letting their farms, no 
longer intimidate those of their tenants who are inclined to 
vote “against them.” 

The difficulty of forming regular party organizations in the 
country districts is due in a greater degree to the absence or 
the want of public spirit than to the intimidation practised by 
squires and parsons. It being impossible, for one reason or 
another, to have village committees, the Organization of the 
party falls back on secretaries, unpaid correspondents in each 
place. It is always some one who is well acquainted with his 
locality and with the inner history of each of his neighbours, 
‘“‘a knowledgeable man,” as the phrase goes in some parts. 
Without attracting attention, the correspondent watches the 


FirsT CHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 367 





political situation in his village and keeps the secretary of the 
Association informed of everything that can interest him. 
The latter controls him, sends him questions, gives him lists 
or other papers to prepare, or entrusts him with commis- 
sions of a less formal kind. In places where the Liberals 
have reason or think they have reason for apprehending boy- 
cotting on the part of their political opponents, the secretary 
of the Association sends all his communications to his corre- 
spondent by letter post, even when he wants to forward him 
a printed document, a circular, or a form. If the village is 
not far from the town, the correspondent himself brings the 
secretary the desired information on market-day, adding a 
basket of eggs or vegetables as a personal tribute. It is 
needless to say that as all the work of the party is entrusted 
to the correspondent, much discernment is required in select- 
ing him. In this respect the Liberals exhibit more tact than 
their rivals: their correspondent in the village is the shoe- 
maker, the tailor, the farrier of the locality, or an intelligent 
farmer, occasionally the postman.’ Being a man of the people, 
this correspondent has the ear of his neighbours, he is “one of 
themselves,” he can turn them round his finger, so that he makes 
a firstrate electoral agent. The Tory correspondent, on the other 
hand, is generally a “superior” man, the clergyman, the school- 
master, a farmer, whose devotion to Church and State is unim- 
peachable and who is very good at keeping the books, but who 
does not “understand” the people. When the Tories form a 
committee of the party in the village their first thought is to 
put “a leading man” at its head. It is only in default of him 
that they fall back on an “intelligent workingman.” Being 
still behind their fellow Tories of the large towns, they do not 
realize or they forget that not only is the hour at hand but 
that it has come. 

If the parish cannot supply the groundwork of the Organi- 
- zation of the party, several of them are grouped together into 
local “ centres,’ which thereupon serve as a basis for the Asso- 
ciations or district committees. Their delegates often hold 
their authority from themselves. Often instead of the district 
Associations there are only committees, which are also self- 

1] have even been told (in Devonshire) of a policeman as one of the corre- 


spondents of the Liberal Organization. 
VOL. 1—2B 


368 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





appointed. The powers of these committees are sometimes 
exercised by party clubs which are to be found in certain 
villages. In parts of the country where either party is very 
weak numerically, as for instance, in the case with the Liberals 
in southern England or the Tories in Scotland, the rules of the 
Association themselves anticipate the impossibility of obtain- 
ing representatives selected by popular vote, and authorize the 
executive committees of the Associations to appoint the local 
delegates of their own accord. 

All these difficulties of organization scarcely exist in the 
urban sections of county Divisions. Consequently the divis- 
ional Association generally has branches in all the small 
towns, and @ fortiori in the larger towns, which sometimes 
form part of county constituencies. Some of these towns, 
which are “ merged” boroughs, have even been familiar with 
the procedure of the Caucus for a considerable time, having 
possessed an independent Association before 1885. ‘There are 
villages, too, which are in no way behind the towns as regards 
the development of the Organization of the party. This is 
precisely the case with rural non-agricultural districts. In 
the north of England as well as in Scotland, rural agglomera- 
tions are found, which are pre-eminently manufacturing and 
industrial. In several of these villages the inhabitants are 
counted by thousands; and, in point of fact, they are more in 
the nature of towns. 

But apart from these urban islets, the non-elective element 
(self-appointed or introduced under the rules), always fills a 
considerable place in county Organizations. Besides, the pluto- 
cratic element, that of the large subscribers, holds a still more 
important position in them than in the town caucuses. Con- 
sequently, wire-pulling becomes in a way a foregone conclu- 
sion and almost a legitimate proceeding. The activity of the 
wire-pullers operates in a more direct, a more patriarchal, 
manner, so to speak. They are not obliged to go through all 
the forms and ceremonies of the genuine town Caucus, although 
they have to sway their people by the same considerations, by 
appealing to feelings of duty and self-esteem, as modified 
by the surroundings. The subordinate wire-puller of the 
county Organization, who is the village correspondent of the 
Association, works on his neighbours by his personal and im- 


First cHAP.] THE MACHINERY OF THE CAUCUS 369 





mediate influence, and he himself is spontaneously affected 
by the prestige of persons in the county town who have 
assumed the position of wire-pullers, and who are adorned 
with the titles of chairman or members of the executive com- 
mittee of the Association. 

But however far the counties’ Organization may be from 
theoretical perfection, it has none the less by its series of 
branches, committees, and volunteer correspondents brought 
about in the counties a certain decentralization in the man- 
agement of the affairs of the party. And, what is equally 
important, slack and defective as is the chain of the county 
_ Organization, it is composed in the main of small people, from 
the village shoemaker up to the tradesman of the towns, who 
formerly held aloof or were pushed aside to make way for the 
gentlemen. 

These results have been obtained in a lesser degree in the 
Tory Organizations; the Conservative county Associations are 
often less democratic than their rivals of the other side, they 
do not feel the need of it to the same extent. For it is not 
only out of pure love for the elective principle that the Liberals 
have introduced it into their Organization, but in order to get 
at the new voter more easily ; they have framed their machinery 
with the special object of “reaching the masses.” The Tories, 
who are the heirs or legatees of the old order of things with its 
time-honoured social relations which ensured the ascendency 
of the landlords in everyday life, have more natural connections 
in the country districts. There the squire and the parson form 
the living nucleus of a political organization spontaneously 
joined by all the country folk who have not, by their intelli- 
gence or by their interests and their cupidity, yet emancipated 
themselves from their influence. True, in a good many places 
the ground is undermined beneath the squire and the parson, 
but the surface is still pretty firm. A landlord who deservedly 
enjoys a good reputation is always followed, as in the old days, 
by everybody, without reference to personal political preferences. 
And then there are still many localities where the agricultural 
labourers are so backward and so childishly naive that the 
Tory leaders have no need to stand on ceremony and to pre- 
tend to observe the elective principle in governing the party. 
Hence there are Conservative county Associations which are 

28 


370 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rTurrp part 





mere names. All the party work in the Division is performed 
from a solicitor’s office, which is the real laboratory of the 
party. In it this lawyer and his clerks mysteriously manipu- 
late the electoral business. In short, the old order of things 
is still in full swing there. These oases are found mostly in the 
south of England, in remote rural districts, or even within 
the radius of old episcopal towns, where under the shadow of 
the cathedral the whole population is half asleep and plunged 
in some hazy dream of the past. 

To ensure unity of action among all the divisional Organiza- 
tions in the county, which may be necessary or useful in cer- 
tain cases, county Federations or Councils have been started in 
several parts of the country, on the pattern of the United 
Committees or Councils of large towns. They have not attained 
the importance of the general Associations of towns. The dis- 
similarity of political conditions in the different parts of the 
county and its large area are by no means favourable to the 
formation of a strong central organization to take the place of 
the divisional Associations, when the latter find it very hard to 
cope with these difficulties, which are considerably less in their 
case. 


SECOND CHAPTER 
THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 
iE 


THE Organization of parties which we have been studying 
has disclosed to us a structure which may be described as 
ingenious; the living wheels of which its mechanism is com- 
posed are, we may admit, well co-ordinated and adjusted, and 
their regular working is fairly ensured. The forces which set 
them in motion are perhaps highly effective, and constitute a 
propelling power of an exceedingly strong yet very simple 
nature. Intended to fight the battles of fierce:y competing 

les, rganization con s, 1t may also be admitted, 
all the essential conditions of success, by providing men accus- 
tomed_to obey orders, well disciplined, and following freely 
acknowledged leaders, who in their turn possess in a high 
degree such qualities as energy, skill, and strategical and_tac- 
tical ability. ‘But, after all, this valiant army commanded by 
first-r hi small battalion confronting 
the bulk of the ans How is it possible for such a hand- 
ful of men to capture the formidable fortress of a well-nigh 
universal suffrage? This question, which naturally occurs to 
the mind, brings us to an examination of the various methods 
by which the Caucus reaches and acts upon the great mass of 
voters. 



































In the old days, when the electorate was far more limited, 
there was a gap in the constitutional wall which surrounded 
it; this, as will be remembered, was electoral registration, the 
keeping of the lists of voters, which was almost entirely left 
to private initiative by the authorities. It will also be recol- 
lected that the necessity of making up for the shortcomings 
of the State had even led to the formation of Registration 

371 


372 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rurrp parr 








Societies. Since then this wall has been repeatedly lengthened 
to take in an ever-increasing number of citizens. But nothing 
has been done to repair the gap, and widened in its turn as 
time went on it was the first to let in the Caucus. With the 
extension of the suffrage the interest of private individuals in 
registration became a still more pressing political need, and the — 
Caucus Associations which ousted the old Legistration Societies 
hastened to take up their business and at once found in it a 
sphere of legitimate activity and a source of influence. 

To form an idea of this activity, and of the position which 
it gives the Caucus, it is indispensable to go somewhat closely 
into the details of the onerous task of registration. The proper 
keeping of the register, which is of such paramount importance 
for the exercise of the vote, is really a most complicated piece 
of business. The legislative provisions on the subject are con- 
tained in more than a hundred statutes, to which must be 
added a vast and obscure mass of judicial decisions. The 
electoral qualifications alone, ¢.e. the conditions as to property 
and residence which give the right to be put on the register 
and to vote afterwards, are singularly numerous, varied, and 
confused. In accordance with the usual practice of English 
legislation, which does not create anew, which does not make 
a clean sweep of old enactments, but patches them up or adds 
to them, every new Reform Bill which extended the franchise 
set up a new group of voters with special qualifications. Thus 
to the several franchises which existed before 1832 the great 
Reform Bill added, in the boroughs, persons occupying rateable 
tenements of the annual value of £10, and in the counties, 
freeholders of the clear annual value of £10, copyholders of 
£10 per annum, leaseholders of the annual value of £10 when 
the lease was for sixty years, or of the annual value of £50 for 
a term of twenty years, and, finally, tenants at will paying not 
less than £50 a year. The Act of 1867, while lowering the 
minimum of £10 to £5 for the counties, introduced new elec- 
toral qualifications by enfranchising, in addition to the persons 
qualified as above mentioned, in the counties all occupiers of 
lands or tenements of the rateable value of £12 and upwards, 
and in the boroughs all inhabitant occupiers of a separate 
dwelling-house of whatever value, and lodgers paying an. an- 
nual rent of not less than £10. ~The Reform Act of 1884 has 
































SECOND cHAP.]| THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 373 





introduced these last two categories of voters in the counties 
as well. By the same Act, construed in a very liberal way by 
judicial decisions, a vote has been allowed to service men (such 
as coachmen, gardeners, shop assistants living on the premises, 
etc.) not residing under the same roof as their masters. Legal 
opinion has conceded a vote also to sub-tenants of a house let 
or sublet in parts, even in single rooms, by a non-resident 
owner, without any condition as to minimum rent. 

To these conditions which confer the franchise the law adds 
others for the exercise of the right, to wit, the payment of the 
poor-rate for the tenements the’ownership or occupation of 
which constitutes the electoral qualification, and the occupa- 
tion of the premises’ for a certain period, generally twelve 
months before the annual closing of the register. The voter 
who has changed his residence during this twelvemonth, while 
remaining in the same borough or, in the case of counties, in 
the same electoral division, retains his right to be put on the 
register if he is a householder; but if he is only a lodger suc- 
cessive occupation is of no use to him; the mere fact of removal 
into the adjoining building, into the next number in the same 
street, deprives him of his right of appearing on the register 
until he has spent the statutory twelvemonth in his new resi- 
dence, so that he may remain without a vote for two years or 
more. In any case lodgers are only put on the register on 
their formal application renewed every year and supported by 
proof, while the other voters are entered in it as a matter of 
course once for all until proof is forthcoming that they have 
lost their electoral capacity or their right to exercise it. The 
franchise is lost by death, by promotion to the Peerage, and 
by naturalization in a foreign country; it lapses, at all events 
during the period for which the register is made up, by the 
loss of the property qualification, by change of residence be- 
yond the permitted limit of successive occupation, by non-pay- 
ment of the poor-rate, and by receipt of relief under the Poor 
Law. 

Thus to bring a voter on the register or to keep him there 
in case his right is disputed it is necessary to establish a num- 


1 Except for owners in the counties, who are not bound by any condition of 
residence, and can come and vote even if they live abroad. These are the 
outvoters who have been referred to above (p. 147). 


374 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





ber of facts and legal points which often give rise to doubt 
and raise questions of great complexity. Has he the franchise 
and on what kind of property or occupancy can he rest his 
right ? can he claim it under such or such an Act ? can he appeal 
to the law of King Henry VI in the fifteenth century ? is he 
affected by this or that later statute ? — all occasionally very 
knotty points. Is the voter on the register or applying to be 
put on it an Englishman or an alien ?— the problem may be 
anything but a simple one. The applicant is of foreign extrac- 
tion and has never been naturalized; but that need not prove 
anything against him, for perhaps he is a descendant of a 
Hanoverian settled in England before 1837, when Englishmen 
and Hanoverians were subjects of the same King. Does he 
inhabit a “house” or not? That depends. If there are sev- 
eral apartments or rooms all let or sublet, each of these tenants 
“inhabits a house”; but if the person to whom they pay rent 
occupies one of the apartments of the house in question, they 
are merely “tenants” and can claim the franchise only as duly 
qualified lodgers. The lodger’s qualification is fixed at £10 clear 
annual rent, but if the claimant takes the room furnished he 
must prove a higher rent, but up to what amount? It varies 
with the importance of the borough. But apart from the ap- 
praisement of the rental qualification the simple capacity of 
lodger, clear as it may appear, is often very difficult to establish 
from the point of view of electoral law. Does the tenant share 
his room with others? Is his bed separated from the other beds 
by a partition? Can he use the room to the exclusion of every 
one else? For instance, a son living with his father can claim 
the right to vote as a lodger, but if the door of the room has 
no jock to it or if he has shared his bedroom with a visitor, 
he has no right to a vote, for the room is not used exclusively 
by him. The occupier of a “house,” who is bound to prove 
an occupancy of a twelvemonth, may have occupied several 
dwellings one after another during this time, but if it is in 
London the question arises whether the adjoining street into 
which he has moved is in the same “borough” or not; if not, 
he loses his right to vote, whereas at Birmingham or at Liver- 
pool he may have moved from one end of the city to the other 
without forfeiting his electoral privilege, for Birmingham and 
Liverpool, although split up into several electoral divisions, 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 375 





are each only a single city. The receipt of parochial relief 
by the voter or his wife or his children deprives him of a vote. 
This is clear, to all appearances, but is the relief received to 
be always considered as such ? For instance, a voter troubled 
with a drunken wife loses patience and turns her out of doors; 
driven by hunger she applies for and obtains relief from the 
parish; ought her husband to be struck off the register or 
not? <A voter suffering from the small-pox has been placed 
by order of the authorities in the hospital set apart for this 
disease, where he has been nursed and fed. He has therefore 
received relief in food, but then he was obliged to eat to 
recover. Can he be kept on the register ? 

To these manifold questions and difficulties connected with 
the application of the law on the franchise, of which barely 
a few examples have been given, are added the endless formali- 
ties prescribed for the making up and revising of the register 
of voters of every description, which in their turn entail in 
practice numerous proofs of fact, arguments on points of law, 


or simply pettifogging disputes. As_almost_all the work in- 


volved in keeping up the register_has, in the state of things 


with which we have become seauainted,’ een left to private 


initiative, to the political parties, all three — proof, legal argu- 
ment, and pettifogging — devolve upon the Caucus Associations, 














II 


Being anxious to get their adherents on the register, in view 
of the election which may take place in the course of the year, 
the Associations require to know, in the case of every voter, 
all the particulars by virtue of which his entry or omission 
can be claimed or objected to. To obtain this information the 
Association institutes a canvass, a general census of the con- 
stituency carried out by its members, who make their first ap- 
pearance here in the capacity of “ workers ” of the Organization. 
Each committee of a ward parcels it out among its members 
by streets or sections of streets. Over each block is set a 
member of the committee (often called “ captain ” of the block) 
to supervise the census taken by the canvassers, outsiders 


1 Cf. above, pp. 141, 142. 


376 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp Part 





or members of the Association, both paid as a rule, but at a 
very moderate rate, five or six shillings a day (this is one of 
the opportunities of making money for the caucus-men which 
were alluded to above), The canvasser goes to all the houses 
in turn with the list of, voters, to find out the inaccuracies or 
errors which require correction and the additions which have 
to be made. Hetakes down the surname and Christian names 
of the householder with their exact spelling, the old address 
of the man who has moved in, the new residence of the 
man who has moved out, the date of each of these removals; 
the letting value of all premises not used as dwellings, such as 
shops, offices, warehouses; he tries to find out all the lodgers 
and to ascertain if they have taken their rooms furnished or 
not, the weekly rent they pay, their landlord’s address, the date 
on which they came into the house, etc. This census is a 
work of great labour. A single house often has to be visited 
more than once. On an average, three visits are paid to each 
house. The lodgers make the canvass particularly difficult in 
the large towns. An eminently floating population, they fre- 
quently change their address, and it is not always easy to dis- 
cover their new abode, especially if it is a case of people who 
flit from one quarter to another or are even in the habit of 
decamping secretly. And they must absolutely be found, 
for even if they are old voters, they have to be entered afresh 
every year or at any rate it is necessary to prove the fact of 
their removal into another house, which deprives them of the 
right of being put on the register for the current year. All 
the information collected by the canvassers and checked 
by the local members of the Association is reported to the 
secretary of the ward, who transmits it to the secretary of 
the Caucus of the division. There, in the office of the Caucus, 
the data supplied by the registration canvass are combined 
with the particulars from the parish as to voters in arrears 
with their rates and those who have been relieved under the 
Poor Law, to become as many weapons for defending political 
friends and combating antagonists. Every voter being invited 
by the law to lodge with the Overseers of the Poor in the parish 
who are entrusted with the preparation of the register, a claim to 
be put on it if he has been left out, as well as objections against 
wrong entries, the Associations, stepping into the shoes of the 


. 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 377 





individual voters, try to get as many of their followers on the 
register as they can by means of claims, and to strike off as many 
of their opponents as possible by means of objections. But how 
are they to know friends from enemies? ‘This is ascertained in 
the course of the registration canvass, and is perhaps the most 
difficult part of its work. Besides the information mentioned 
above, the special business of the canvasser is to find out the 
voter’s “ politics,” 7.e. with which political party he is inclined 
to vote, and very often it is no easy matter to extract this from 
him. If the canvasser is a paid agent, a poor devil who wants 
to earn a few shillings, he has not much chance of being the 
recipient of these confidences. A neighbour or a business 
friend is in a much better position for this, but he is not sure 
of succeeding either. For some time past the Associations have 
been in the habit of entrusting these missions to the women 
who belong to the party Organizations and who manage to 
worm the voter’s political opinions out of him more easily. 
But, after all, the “ politics” of a good many voters remains a 
secret or a riddle, and they have to be entered in the third 
column of the canvassing-books which specify, firstly, say the 
Liberals, secondly the Conservatives, and thirdly the doubtful. 
The secretary of the Caucus always considers the “ doubtful ” 
ones as opponents, and he launches objections against them to get 
them struck off the lists on some pretext, good or indifferent. 
Sometimes a voter whose right has been challenged in this way 
writes an indignant letter to the secretary of the, let us say, 
Liberal Caucus, complaining of the attack made on him, a life- 
long Liberal, whose ardent Liberalism is beyond all suspicion, 
etc. The secretary writes him a humble apology and joyfully 
enters him among the voters on whom he can depend, quod 
erat demonstrandum. 

The objections, numerous as they are, generally proceed from a 
single person acting as objector-general on behalf of the Caucus, 
whereas the claims have to be lodged by each claimant individ- 
ually. Practically it is the party Association which, after 
having found out the person entitled to make the claim, draws 
it up. The Association sees that a printed slip containing all 
the details relating to the particular voter is handed to him; he 
has only to sign it and return it to the secretary of the Caucus, 
who forwards it to the Overseer of the Poor in charge of the 


378 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rairp part 





register. The latter takes down all claims and objections sent 
to him without adjudicating on their validity. The decision 
rests with the Revising Barrister, who holds a registration 
court in each place every year for this purpose, and it is 
there that the rival caucuses have a regular fight over the 
names of the voters who are on or off the register. They sift 
them thoroughly by starting all manner of possible and im- 
possible objections to the qualifications of their presumed 
political opponents. The very brief outline of the legislation on 
this subject which has been given above has shown how easy 
it is to raise disputed points. The party agents devote all the 
resources of their professional knowledge to multiplying them 
in order to deprive as many persons on the other side as pos- 
sible of the right to vote. They leave no stone unturned. 
Nothing is more common for them than to object to the spelling 
of a proper name. For instance, a man named John Thomson, 
a shoemaker by trade and a Radical in politics, has been put 
on the register as Thompson, with a p added. The Tory agent 
applies to have his name struck off and succeeds, because there 
is no Thompson at the address given, the house is inhabited by 
another person called Thomson. The slightest omission in the 
wording of the objection or of the claim may prove a fatal 
fiaw, thanks to the highly technical view which the Revising 
Barristers and the courts of appeal take of these matters. For 
instance, an objecting party while giving his exact address has 
omitted to state the name of the parish in which he lives; at 
once he is put out of court and his objection against the illegal 
entry of perhaps hundreds of names effected by the mancuvres 
of the other side becomes épso facto null and void. Claims are 
lodged and objections made which are wittingly unfounded or 
are sometimes even fraudulent: to support a claim qualifying 
property is shown which in reality has never been occupied by 
the claimant. The democratic Associations have in the matter 
of registration reverted to all the bad traditions of the old 
system and have even carried them further. For instance, the 
plan adopted in former days by certain Registration Societies 
of starting thousands of objections, without rhyme or reason, 
has become a regular practice of the caucuses. A citizen whose 
claim to a vote is unimpeachable is often obliged to go before 
the Registration Court and uphold his right to have his name 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 379 








on the register, which is disputed solely in a factious spirit. 
A voter of a cunning turn of mind defends himself by strata- 
gem; he gets himself put on the register through the Associa- 
tion of the opposite party while taking care to let the secre- 
tary of the Caucus on his own side into the secret, so that 
neither Caucus disputes his claim. Not long ago in London (in 
the Islington Registration Court) a Revising Barrister suggested 
this mode of procedure in open court amid general laughter testi- 
fying to the easy indifference with which everybody looks on 
these practices.’ Sometimes a similar course is followed by a 
voter whose claim is defective; for instance, a Liberal who has 
not completed his twelve months’ residence tells the registration 
canvasser of the Conservative Association that he is a Conser- 
vative. If the Association finds out afterwards that he has 
not occupied the premises for the statutory twelvemonth,_ it 
takes good care not to draw the attention of the Revising 
Barrister to the fact. 

Nor does this official raise all these points which may affect 
the right to a vote of his own initiative, the Revising Barrister 
is as arule merely the umpire between the contending politi- 
cal parties. Although actually the representative of the 
Law, of the State, he is by no means the vigilant guardian of 
the public interest which is at stake. The fact that the suffrage 
was for a long time a personal privilege, the property of a few 
favoured individuals, has dimmed or obscured the notion of 
a vote as a public right exercised in the general interest. The 
intervention of the political parties, who flung themselves on the 
exercise of the suffrage to serve their own ends, has completed 
the conversion of the vote almost into a private right within 
the meaning of the civil law, a piece of property, benefiting 
however not the rightful holder of it, but the “party.” When 
the right to a vote is challenged in the registration courts, it is 
the political parties who are the real litigants, and not the 
individual voters who appear in court only as witnesses to 
be cross-examined by the representatives of the rival cau- 


1 The following dialogue took place between the officials of the Court, the 
Revising Barrister and the Vestry Clerk. The Revising Barrister: ‘ A wise 
man would send his claim through both parties.’’— The Vestry Clerk: ‘‘or 
claim through his political opponents.’’ — The Revising Barrister: ‘‘ and give 
notice to his friends.’’ — The Vestry Clerk: ‘‘and use his opponent’s convey- 
ances at elections.”’ 


380 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





cuses. The caucuses, who wrangle over electors’ rights for 
their own benefit, also make bargaining counters of them, 
as in the case of all property subject to litigation and com- 
promise. Thus not unfrequently the agents of both caucuses, 
to clear the ground, “ pair off,” ¢.e. agree among themselves 
to withdraw an equal number of claims and objections on each 
side. Without having consulted the voters interested, they 
sacrifice their more or less well-founded rights, taking care only 
to see that the chances of the parties are equal. If a Revising 
Barrister is found to remind them that by acting in this way 
they allow persons to get on the register who, perhaps, have no 
right to a vote, or vice versa, the agents of the Caucus in their 
turn imperturbably remind him of the regular practice accord- 
ing to which all points are admitted on which the parties 
are agreed. When a party Association is taken unawares by 
the unexpected number of claims lodged by its rival, it sallies 
forth to search for fresh claims so as to be a match for the other 
side. The constituency is scoured in every direction to ferret 
out “ political friends” who can claim to be put on the register. 
As long as it was supposed that they were not wanted, no heed 
was paid to them, no trouble was taken to make the exercise 
of their constitutional right easier for them, to give these indif- 
ferent voters the means of participating in civic life, to arouse 
their public spirit; it was only when the party was in danger 
that the Association set to work to hunt up new claims, just as 
in war-time on the approach of a superior force of the enemy 
a fresh levy of troops is hastily raised to procure combatants, 
to provide food for powder. 


Thus, thanks. to. the complexity-and-intricacy of the law, 


to the confusion and occasional incoherence of the judicial 
decisions on the subject, and to the utterly selfish and wnscru- 
pulous activity of the party Associations, England still has, in 
spite of the great extension of the right of voting, equivalent 
almost to universal suffrage, an “artificial instead of a natural 
franchise,” as has been more than once noted under thé old 
régime.’ A well-known Conservative election agent, whose 
double capacity of Caucus secretary and Tory clears him from 
all suspicion of hostility to the party Associations and of exces- 
sive partiality for the widest possible exercise of the vote, testi- 


sil 
nt ay 


1 Blue Books, 1868-1869, Vol. VII, § 1312. 


























sEconD cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 381 





fies to this state of things in eloquent language which breathes 
an honest indignation: “The franchise has been made a mock- 
ery and we must clear away the endless scandals of the Revi- 
sion Courts. The law on the subject is a sealed book except to 
a few, and those who are neither Tories nor Radicals — the 
neutrals — political outcasts — suffer most, for the party agents 
neglect to claim for them if let off the list, and if on, each side is 
anxious to get them off, as neither side trusts them. The prac- 
tical administration of the law should not be made the toy of 
any political party. To get your right as a voter you have to 
plead before barristers (many of whom apparently never take 
the trouble to study the law) as if you are a criminal, or leave 
it to party agents, some of whom delight to squabble indefi- 
nitely over procedure as absurd in practice as in theory — and 
even then you are liable to be juggled out of your vote by legal 
quibble. In any case the register, when complete, is a trophy 
of party trickery and manipulation.” ! 

The Caucus Associations through whom this “ party trickery 
and manipulation” is practised partly cannot help it, being in 
a way driven to it by the law which makes straightforward and 
- open action a difficult matter. Interfering, as they do, in the 
making up of the register, they render services to many a 
voter who, left to his own resources, would never have been 
able to make his way through the dense jungle of law and 
judicial decision. Put to a great extent the Associations are, 
as we have-been able to see, the deliberate authors of the 
state of things which the Tory secretary rightly describes as 
scandalous. For in it they try to find influence for their respec- 
tive parties and discover a justification of their own existence. 
On the pretext, made plausible by their own “trickery and ma- 
nipulation,” of helping the voter to maintain his right, the cau- 
cuses worm themselves into his confidence and mark out in his 
very feelings, so to speak, the lines of their future action, of the 
attempts which they mean to make on him when election time 
comes round. The voters who have got on or kept on the 
register with the help of the Association naturally feel under 
an obligation to it. If they were old adherents of the party, 
they are confirmed in their devotion to it; if they were hold- 
ing aloof they are led towards it, connections and ties are 


1 Summary of a speech by J. H. Bottomley (England, 7th December, 1889). 


3d2 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





formed between them and it. To obtain this result, those who 
are indifferent or neutral in politics are sometimes even made 
to believe that the right of voting has been secured for them 
by the exertions of the Association of one or other of the 
parties, when in reality it has not been impugned by anybody." 
Other voters whose sympathies are entirely with the party in 
general, are obliged to its concrete representative, the Associa- 
tion, for seeing that they are on the register, while not at all 
anxious as to their right, and they get into the habit of looking 
on the Association with a friendly eye and of listening to its 
proposals. In any event, whatever may be the effects on the 
voters’ minds, the annual campaign of registration gives the 
Caucus an opportunity of converting it into a regular recon- 
noissance. The Caucus penetrates into their conscience, pries 
into their political opinions, in defiance of the secrecy of the 
vote, and having ascertained their feelings towards itself, is 
able to decide on the nature and the amount of the influence 
which must be brought to bear on the voters in view of the 
great battle on the polling-day. 


it 


The census of friends and of enemies having been taken, the 
next point is to convert the latter, if possible, to keep and con- 
firm the former in their friendly feelings and to decide the 
“ doubtful” ones and the waverers. The only fair way of 
doing this is to imbue them with a belief in the creed of the 
party, in the excellence of its doctrines, and in the superiority 
of its conduct over that of the rival parties. The efforts which 
must be made in this direction constitute the second great 


1 For instance, after the close of the registration proceedings, the secretary 
of the, we will say, Liberal Caucus, writes the following letter to a number of 
voters whose cases have not come before the Registration Court at all: ‘‘ Dear 
Sir, Ihave much pleasure in informing you that in spite of the determined 
opposition of the Tories we have succeeded in keeping your name on the reg- 
ister.’”’ The first impulse of the recipient of this note is to fly into a passion 
with the Tories for having attacked him without any provocation on his part, 
as he has no politics. But when reason reasserts her rights, he reflects that 
if the Tories wanted to deprive him of his vote, he must be their political 
opponent, and if this is so it follows that he is a Liberal. And bya process of 
reasoning, the logical strictness of which is unexceptional, he thus arrives 
at the conclusion which the secretary of the Caucus was driving at. 


SECOND CHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 383 








task of the Associations, that of the political education of the 
electorate. 

The party Organizations supply this education in three forms : 
pubfic meetings and other large gatherings, lectures, and politi- 
cal literature gratuitously distributed. Public meetings became 
from the outset the favourite resource of the caucuses. They 
corresponded with the idea of the Caucus that political prog- 
ress could be achieved only by incessant agitation, and that 
agitating was educating the country. Besides, the old method 
of individual conversion seemed impracticable after the vast 
increase in the number of voters effected by successive Re- 
form Bills, whereas meetings presented a ready means of 
carrying wholesale the masses who might have been attracted 
to them. They were to produce the same result as steam and 
machinery taking the place of individual labour in industry. 
In any event meetings serve to keep up a noise about the party, 
for the purpose of showing that it is alive and well. If only 
for this object, therefore, the Caucus tries to organize great 
party gatherings as often as possible without waiting for them 
to occur, as in the old days, more or less spontaneously and 
at irregular intervals. But to make a good show of the party’s 
strength, which the meetings are intended to do, they must not 
only take place frequently but be a “success,” é.e. get together 
an “influential platform,” fluent speakers, and of course a large 
public. If the meetings were not held often, it would convey 
the impression that the party is losing ground; but if they 
are not a “success,” the party is none the better for them, “it 
gives a bad tone to your party,” as an expert has put it. 

Practically the frequency of meetings varies a good deal 
with the localities. In small places there are not always large 
assembly rooms to be had; in others there is a want of go; 
in others again the reverse is the case, one meeting is held 
after another. Sometimes they are public in the strict mean- 
ing of the word, sometimes admittance is obtained only 
through tickets distributed by the Association. Ticket meet- 
ings are in vogue especially with the Tories, who have not yet 
quite outgrown their traditional distrust of the people. Their 
political opponents, however, undertake to provide them with 
an excuse for it; for when the Tories organize public meetings, 
these are often invaded by rowdies from the opposite camp. 

















384 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





It will be remembered with what success this device was prac- 
tised at Birmingham under the paternal eye of the Liberal 
Association. The decline of habits of freedom which is becom- 
ing more and more a characteristic of great party gatherings 
in England does not protect even ticket meetings from disorder, 
especially at election time. ; 
The success of the meeting depends first and foremost on the 
merit of the speakers, especially in the absence of any great 
political event or of an incident which happens to stir pub- 
lic opinion and to draw the masses. The social position of the 
speaker is an important claim to the attention of the public, 
but his oratorical ability is far more so. In the old days there 
was no need to be an orator to make an impression on an Eng- 
lish audience; all that it asked for was sincerity of tone and 
common sense, which went straight not only to its homely 
intelligence but to its heart. Form was of no account; if it 
was somewhat brilliant it even raised doubts as to the speaker’s 
straightforwardness; he was suspected of being like an actor 
who has learnt his part and who wants to take in honest folk. 
To gain the ear of the audience it was even not amiss to tone 
down one’s natural volubility a little, to approximate as much as 
possible to the ordinary style of speaking, which Lytton Bulwer 
has eulogized as follows: “ Hesitating, Humming, and Drawling 
are the three Graces of our conversation.”' But the extension 
of the social refinement which is euphemistically styled culture 
and, on the other hand, the advent of democracy have changed 
all this. In the course of the usual process of a surface civili- 
zation which develops the esthetic feeling of the common herd 
by giving them a taste rather for tawdriness and glaring tints, 
and in consequence of the efforts made to win the new master, 
the sovereign people, who is even more naive and credulous than 
imperious and infatuated, by oratorical devices, the rhetoric 
of politicians has rapidly become a treat for the masses and 
the clever speaker the popular favourite. The thirst for po- 
litical oratory is now really extraordinary in the country. 
Some time ago Lord Salisbury advised his followers to train 
themselves to be able to meet this demand, in the following 
terms: “In these days, whether we like it or not, the power is 
- with the tongue, the power is with those who can speak, whether 


1 England and the English, Book II, Ch. I. 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 385 





on the platform or in Parliament. I am not holding up this 
state of things as the ideal of political existence, but as a fact 
with which we are confronted now. I have known very dis- 
tinguished orators who were perfectly incompetent men, and I 
have known very competent men who could not put two sentences 
—two grammatical sentences — together. But in spite of that 
fact, it remains still true that the desire for oratory, for speak- 
ing on every platform and in every portion of the country, is 
intense, and seems to be growing in intensity every year.” ! 

The Caucus, on its side, helps to gratify this craving for 
oratory and to stimulate it. To some who are always dying 
to speak and who get excited and intoxicated with their own 
words, it supplies a pretext for airing their eloquence in the 
private gatherings of the Organization and then in the public 
meetings. To others the Caucus procures opportunities of 
hearing good speakers, or even celebrated orators, who come 
down to deliver a speech by invitation of the Association. A 
good many members of the Association join them, or even get 
elected to the “hundreds” simply for the purpose of having a 
good place at the large meetings. For them it is like having 
a box at the opera. Hence the importance for the Association 
of obtaining for its public meetings speakers who can make an 
impression, who can carry away the audience; otherwise people 
would not come to them. 

The usual speakers of the Association are its own members, 
the President and other office-bearers, who are sufficient for 
every-day requirements, or even for special occasions in the 
wards or in small places of rural constituencies. Then comes 
the local M.P., the Member of Parliament for the Division, 
who is obliged to appear before his constituents as often as 
possible to make speeches to them. But the great attraction 
consists in the speakers imported from London, the “big guns.” 
The Association communicates with them directly or through 
the central Organization of the party, which is far better able 
to induce speakers who are in great request to go down to 
the place. The local Associations always ask for an M.P. at 
least to be sent to them, if they cannot aspire to the honour of 
obtaining a Cabinet Minister or an ex-Minister. It is not easy 
with the best will in the world to procure them this last article, 


1 Speech of the 15th July, 1891, at the United Club. 
VOL. I— 2c 


386 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





for England has not yet got as far as some continental countries 
in which parliamentary government has had the effect that 
nearly everybody has been a Minister. English Ministers con- 
sist of two small groups of men who come into power alter- 
nately for a whole generation. They are therefore doled out 
to the popular audiences in the provinces. But plain M.P.’s 
are supplied to the Associations pretty liberally. It is in 
fact on them that the duty mostly devolves of satisfying the 
passion for oratory with which their fellow-citizens are afflicted. 
Formerly a Member of Parliament seldom spoke even in his own 
constituency; a special occasion was required for it, the annual 
meeting of an agricultural society or some other similar event. 
To go into a fellow-member’s constituency and harangue his 
electors was considered almost a breach of etiquette. Nowa- 
days M.P.’s do very little else; they are always talking, in ses- 
sion and out of it; norestisallowed them. They are legislators 
in the second place only ; their main function is to be commercial 
travellers for their party in the employ of the Associations. 
Next to the M.P.’s, Associations in search of speechmakers 
have a very valuable resource in the embryo politicians, most 
of whom, young men who have or think they have a career 
before them, are collected in London in special clubs with the 
particular object of providing the Organizations of their re- 
spective parties with speakers. We shall have an opportunity 
of reverting in more detail to these “speaking clubs” later on. 


EY: 


However much the social and intellectual position of the 
speakers may differ, the eloquence which they contribute to 
the meetings has something in common which gives it a special 
stamp in spite of its endless variety. With but few exceptions 
their speeches are fighting harangues, the tone of them is po- 
lemical, marked by an aggressive ardour, and spiced with an 
ever-increasing amount of epigram. It is this last feature 
which is becoming the great attraction for audiences at meet- 
ings, and which in their eyes constitutes the true orator. The 
men who are gifted in a high degree with a slashing style of 
eloquence, the smart speakers, are at a premium on the plat- 


geconp cHaPp.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 387 





form. The thirst for applause is too great for them not to 
yield to the temptation to put themselves on a level with 
the audience, with its new ideas of the beautiful and also of 
the good. For at the same time that a smattering of culture 
was developing new esthetic tastes among the masses in the 
manner just described, the progress of enlightenment was ele- 
vating their moral taste. Their minds began to be more keenly 
sensitive to every aspiration in the direction of justice and 
goodness ; every lofty aim found a louder echo in their hearts ; 
in a word, the faculty of moral enthusiasm had reached a 
higher point in the multitude than it had ever done before. 
But with the imperfect culture which the dawn of know- 
ledge brought in its train, this enthusiasm lacked the moderating 
influence of judgment. Far from being guided by discrimina- 
tion themselves, from undertaking the often thankless task of 
commending it to popular audiences, the speakers at meetings 
are inclined to trade on the new tendencies of the popular 
mind. Their language, breathing a spirit which sets the heart 
aglow, and interspersed with hits at their opponents, forms a 
highly seasoned dish which agreeably tickles the esthetic and 
moral palate of their listeners. The platform speakers amuse 
and edify them at the same time. The anxiety to achieve 
this double result prevents the most cultivated orators from 
being careful in the choice of their expressions and arguments, 
and often tempts them not to be too particular even about 
the facts. Those who are on the highest rungs of the political 
ladder, the responsible statesmen, are not always able to resist 
this. The glare of the footlights dazzles them, and the im- 
mediate effect produced on the audience carries them away. 
More or less unconsciously they aim at the imaginations of 
their listeners; they try to make the springs of enthusiasm 
within them gush forth, to draw out their emotions, in order 
to enlist them in the service of the party. Through the 
oratorical electricity which they discharge on the masses, 
they steep them in the party spirit with which they them- 
selves are profoundly imbued. This spirit, as it spreads by 
contagion through the assembled masses, inspires them with 
that feeling of being in the right which makes the disparage- 
ment of opponents a meritorious act, which lends a ceremonial 
dignity to the cheers and laughter that emphasize the words 


388 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp parr 





of the speaker, and which, in perfect good faith, stifles contra- 
diction whenever it ventures to raise its head. The great 
increase in the number of meetings due to party necessities 
tends to convert this style of eloquence into a canon and a 
model. Being obliged to exert himself, that is to say his tongue, 
too often, the speaker has not the time, even if he has the wish, 
to think out his speeches, to prepare them. He is compelled 
to almost improvise them. Having to prove unceasingly that 
his party is invariably right and to crush the other side at all 
hazards, he is forced to lay about him indiscriminately. The 
inevitable result is that poverty of thought takes refuge under 
strong language and that emptiness of matter is disguised by 
rhetoric. 

True, platform eloquence, as developed under the auspices of 
the caucuses, marks a great advance on that of the hustings’ 
of the pre-democratic period. However hollow, claptrap, con- 
ventional, and sectarian the language of platform speakers may 
be, it claims to convince the audience, it makes a show of 
bringing forward arguments and facts, it states a case, it criti- 
cises, it appeals to the moral feelings; whereas the hustings’ 
speakers, without troubling their heads about reasoning and 
sentiments, tried to win the applause of the populace gathered 
beneath them by the audacity of their language and by wit, 
often of a vulgar kind, displayed at the expense of political 
opponents. The platform eloquence of the present day is also 
of a more elevated character than the old popular eloquence in 
vogue at the time of great political movements, such as the 
agitation of the years 1816-1819, or Chartism. But while the 
comparison is in favour of the public meetings of our own day, 
yet in itself it is perhaps not appropriate. The violent and 
declamatory language of the Chartist orators, or of their pre- 
decessors, was simply the temporary and exceptional effect of 
popular commotion let loose by misery and ignorance. Nor 
was the hustings’ style, which was of more regular and even 
of periodical occurrence, a model for extra-parliamentary elo- 
quence. In the public existence of those days the hustings’ 


1 Before the introduction of the ballot, in 1872, candidates who stood for 
Parliament appeared before the electors on a wooden erection called ‘‘ hust- 
ings,’’ which was put up for the occasion by the authorities in one of the prin- 
cipal public places. 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 389 





period was a time of political carnival in which the proprieties 
of ordinary life were in a way suspended. The populace took 
its revenge for its political and social inferiority by often 
amusing itself at the expense of the candidates themselves, 
who were obliged to enter into the spirit of it. It was the 
price which they paid for their election. Their eloquence had 
to adapt itself to the mind and the mood of the crowds which 
surrounded them, and of course its level was not a high one. 
But this was of no consequence, and on a different platform 
to the hustings the same politician spoke a different lan- 
guage; he had another model of eloquence to follow, — that of 
the parliamentary arena. Along with all the profound changes 
which parliamentary eloquence underwent in the course of the 
last century of the pre-democratic era, it always preserved a 
certain elevation. It had its golden age, under the two last 
Georges, from Chatham down to Canning, in the period which 
constituted its “ grand siécle”; it was then a grand style of elo- 
quence, majestic and thrilling, aristocratic and refined. With 
the advent of the middle class it assumed a homely garb; it 
became a commercial, business kind of eloquence, not brilliant, 
but substantial and solid; in other words, honest. It still bore 
this character as it passed on to the platform when the ques- 
tions of the day began to be discussed there, especially from 
the time of the agitation against the Corn Laws. John Bright 
appeared, and in speeches which were faultless in form poured 
the emotion which welled up from the depths of his inner being 
over the hard figures and the facts of the economic controversy 
which, in the mouth of Cobden and his lheutenants, appealed 
patiently and conscientiously to reason and to judgment. He 
made an epoch, but left no school; his oratory was not a 
“manner” which could be learnt. In a narrower field which 
was confined to the north of England, another great popular 
orator, Joseph Cowen, combined the old and the new style of 
eloquence in language marked by profound thought, full of 
startling imagery, clearly cut, of almost monumental concise- 
ness, expanded on the one hand by the intense heat of the 
speaker’s glowing democratic sympathies, and on the other by 
the abundance of ideas and facts which his speeches contained. 
But they were too polished and they pre-supposed far more 
culture and intellectual honesty than the platform admits of, 


390 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





to become a model. It was reserved for the illustrious rival 
in eloquence of Bright and of Cowen, for Mr. Gladstone, to 
become the master, the classic of the platform. He took to it 
rather late in life, after a political career of more than thirty 
years, but he did so at the psychological moment when Eng- 
land was on the eve of passing into democracy, and he brought 
to it, besides his wonderful talent, certain special qualities 
which particularly commended his oratory to the taste of the 
masses and made it a sort of ideal. Mr. Gladstone’s language, 
which was generally prolix, net the popular intelligence, which 
lacks discipline and likes to be always returning to the charge 
in its reasoning, half-way; the consummate art with which he 
marshalled facts and ideas and made them say just what he 
wanted, turned the masses round and round like a top without 
giving them time to reflect; the torrents of passion which, 
springing from the depths of his sincerity and conviction, 
flowed through his oratory, carried them completely away. 
The majority of platform speakers followed this great model, 
exaggerating especially its defects, just as shadows on the can- 
vas of a master are transformed into coarse patches in vulgar 
chromo reproductions. Aided by the new conditions of Eng- 
lish political life and under the auspices of the caucuses, who 
have made themselves as it were contractors for public meet- 
ings, this chromolithograph oratory, with its verbiage, its facile 
sophisms, and its real or simulated passion, has become only 
too common and recalls the style of eloquence which has 
grown up amid the democracy of America under the name of 
“stump ” oratory.! 


Vv 


However unfounded the claim of the meetings to supply 
the masses with political education may appear, it cannot be 


1In the west of the United States, in the midst of settlements run up on 
ground barely cleared, stumps of trees served, during the first election cam- 
paign, asa platform from which the adventurers who solicited the suffrages of 
their casual fellow-citizens harangued them with all the resources of an un- 
scrupulous fluency. In consequence, ‘‘stump’’ has become a term of political 
slang, meaning mob platform, and the expressions ‘‘ stump oratory,’’ ‘‘ stump 
orator’’ became synonymous for political eloquence of a hollow, declamatory 
and misleading kind, trading on the credulity and passions of popular audi- 
ences. The word, however, is now used in ordinary parlance, without having 
necessarily any invidious meaning. 


SECOND CHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 391 





absolutely disallowed; for, after all, scraps of information and 
of argument do fall from the platform which may now and 
then enlighten the audience on the questions of the day 
and perhaps make them reflect on such matters. But the 
extent to which these effects are producible can only be very 
slight, not merely on account of the tone and character of the 
eloquence of the meetings, but also because both parties are 
not heard and those present being all, as a rule, of the same 
persuasion see only one side of the shield. At meetings of 
less importance it is often allowable to ask the speakers for 
explanations by means of brief questions, but there is never 
any discussion or debate. Dissentients may speak, that is 
to say the chairman would allow them to do so, but the 
audience will not listen to them. The tolerant frame of mind 
with which in former days a statement of views manifestly 
opposed to the general sense of the meeting was silently 
and patiently listened to, is a thing of the past.! It is true 
that the speakers of the different parties often reply to each 
other in the respective meetings organized by their political 
friends, and that their speeches, reproduced in the newspapers, 
can be read and compared. But this publicity falls to the lot 
only of speakers who have a national reputation and whose 
sayings and doings interest public opinion; the speeches of 
less important persons can find a place only in the local press, 
where the speech of the political opponent is smothered in a 
few lines. Even if the speech were reported at greater length 
the reasoning of the speaker on the other side is, in this form, 
only a piece of literature; it no longer has anything in common 
with a gathering at which people argue face to face. After 
all, the fact is that in the meetings it is a case of preaching 
to converts, and that their sole object is to besprinkle the 
audience with the magnetic party fluid, to kindle the ardour 
which is smouldering within them, or, to use the favourite term 
by which the leaders of the caucuses express their favourite 
idea, to “raise enthusiasm,” or at least to convey the illusion 
of it to the public. 

Here we have the dominant thought which prescribes the 
choice of the speakers as well as the style of eloquence con- 


1 Cf. H. Jephson, The Platform: its Rise and Progress, Lond, 1892, Vol. Il, 
p. 319. 


392 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





tributed to the meetings, and even the mise-en-scéne of these 
gatherings. The great meetings organized by the Associations 
generally admit of a musical part in their programme; songs 
composed for the use of parties are sung at them, with the 
accompaniment of an orchestra. The mere fact of singing at 
political gatherings is no novelty, but formerly it occurred only 
in times of great political agitations, and consequently the songs 
were then songs for a special occasion inspired by a cause, by 
a particular claim which had the power of stirring the heart. 
Of this kind were the hymn of the Birmingham Political 
Union demanding Parliamentary Reform, the Anti-Corn Law 
hymns, and the Poor Men’s Songs composed on the occasion 
of the agitation against the Corn Laws. After 1868, especially 
under the auspices of the caucuses of both parties, political 
songs were introduced to serve as a liturgy, so to speak, to 
exalt, not so much a particular cause, as the church and the 
saints of the party, the great leaders on each side. At first 
there was a rather strong opposition to it, to wit, in the Liberal 
camp, where a good many were of opinion that political meet- 
ings were not “music-halls.”’ But people soon got used to 
it. In the extreme north of England and in Scotland singing 
was not a success; the cold and more thoughtful temperament 
of the population does not lend itself sufficiently to it. The 
object of most of the songs is to foster general party virtues, 
such as devotion to and admiration for the leaders and a re- 
solve to march shoulder to shoulder against the enemy. Some- 
times stanzas composed for the occasion are introduced.?, The 

1JIt is not without interest to compare this protest, which proceeded from 
men belonging rather to the cultivated classes, with a similar manifestation 
of leaders of labour at a distant and memorable date. It occurred during the 
years 1816-1819, when, at the time of the political awakening of the masses 
which had led to so many public and secret meetings, a proposal was also 
made to introduce the stimulant of vocal music (Samuel Bamford, Passages 
in the Life of a Radical, new edition, 1859, p. 135). 

2 The following are some specimens of songs sung at meetings: 

EARL BEACONSFIELD IS A REMARKABLE MAN 
(Tune— My Grandfather was a Most Wonderful Man) 


Earl Beaconsfield is a remarkable man, 

The best one to lead the Conservative van ; 

* * 7 * * * 

Then flock to the pol/, all Conservatives quick, 

And make the Rads hold the wrong end of the stick, 
Astonish the minds of great William and Bright, 
As they see for themselves their deplorable flight ; 


SECOND CHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 393 





extracts given below prove that the lyre of the party Tyr- 
teuses is remarkable not so much for its poetic beauties as 


While Harcourt and Chamberlain, Parnell and Biggar, 

Look pale as a turnip, or black as a nigger! 

And give the best aid, as you certainly can, 

To Beaconsfield, who’s a remarkable man, 

To Beaconsfield, who’s a remarkable man! 

* * * * * * 

Then fix him in office and keep out the Rads, 

And all the rough lot of Political Cads; 

Old England through them must receive no more hurt, 

Be snubb’d throughout Europe, and dragg’d in the dirt. 

Our true British Queen with her people so free 

Must be first of all nations o’er land and o’er sea! 

And so she will keep if the reign’s not a span 

Of Beaconsfield, who’s a remarkable man! 

Of Beaconsfield, who’s a remarkable man! 
(Conservative Election Songs, Lond. 1880.) 


THE Unronists’ Sone (of recent date) 
(Air— The Mermaid) — 


Don’t you think that the Radicals have meddled quite enough 

With the Army, and the Navy, and the Church ? 

About ‘three acres and a cow’ they made a grand old row, 

But they left the British workman in the lurch, the lurch, the lurch, 
They left the British workman in the lurch. 


Chorus 


For Harcourt and John Morley now may roar, 

And the Grand Old Man may crow, 

But we jolly Unionists will head the poll again, 

And the Radicals will all be down below, below, below, 
Fee Radicals will ae be down pelo: 


* 
(Published by the Canteat Coneoanne Office.) 


THE LIBERAL MARCH 


Men and Liberals! ye whose action 

Put to rout the Tory faction, 

Follow still the chiefs who led ye, 

Keep your ranks still firm and steady, 
In their ranks spread wild distraction 
Vanquished all their bands. 

Keep your swords still sharp and ready, 
Ready to your hands. 


Chorus 


Shoulder press to shoulder, 
Onward march and bolder, 
Triumphs more we yet shall see 
Before we are much older. 

% * * * * 


394 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp parr 





for the ardour of its sentiments. The music of the songs is 
taken in preference from well-known airs,’ which flatter the 


Gladstone’s government shall rule us, 

Men like these will lead, not school us, 

Tory Peers no more shall fool us. 
We’ve a better way! 

Equal rights all shall be sharing, 

Equal burdens all be bearing ; 

Each for all, for all each caring — 
Hail the happy day. 


THE GRAND OLD MAN 


O hark! O hear! how, far and near 

Through all this ancient land, 

The armies of Reform have made 
Their last brave stand. 


Chorus 


A grand old cause have we, 
A Grand Old Man. 

He knows the way to victory, 
The Grand Old Man! 

* % * * 
(Songs for Liberals.) 


THE GRAND OLD STANDARD 


Rise, ye toiling sons of labour, 
Crush oppression strong, 

Liberty and Progress brighten 
At your thrilling song. 


Chorus 


Raise it up, the grand old standard, 
Flaunt the banners wide, 

Join the mighty march for Freedom, 
Victory’s on our side. 


Stand and view the glorious programme 
Which is to be won, 

Loudly greet the grand old leader 
Till his days are done. 


Chorus 


See the Tories, they are nowhere 
’Midst our force arrayed ; 
When the victory is over 
Won’t they look dismayed! 
(Songs issued by the London Liberal and Radical Union.) 


1It appears that they are not always popular enough, and some time ago 
an important London newspaper held forth gravely on the advantage which 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 395 





ear of the audience and even enable them to sing in chorus. If 
everybody cannot speak, everybody can sing. Moreover, they 
are all allowed to join personally in the proceedings outside 
the musical part, and to contribute to it in other ways besides 
applause and shouts: voting goes on as well, and everybody 
can lift up his hand; after every couple of speeches delivered 
a resolution is generally put to the meeting, declaring, approv- 
ing, or censuring something or somebody. Finally, when all 
the regular speeches are at an end, thanks are voted to the 
Chairman of the meeting, on a motion made with more or less 
brevity but always by a couple of speakers, the proposer and 
the seconder. 

For some time past it has become a common practice to hold 
party meetings out-of-doors (open-air meetings), in a public 
place, a garden or a park. The masses are more easily at- 
tracted there, especially in the summer time, and the expense of 
hiring a large room is saved. In the field of religious propa- 
ganda dissent long ago popularized outdoor meetings. The 
great founders of Methodism, John Wesley and Whitefield, 
deserting the consecrated places of worship and the respect- 
able people who frequented them, preached in the open air, 
amid the fields, to thousands of brutalized miners, and it was 
there that they achieved their greatest successes by plunging 
the assembled multitudes into nervous crises, by exciting to 
the point of hysteria the religious enthusiasm which they 
awakened in these rude and untutored souls. Since then 
preaching in the streets has become a regular feature of Eng- 
lish life, as any foreigner taking a walk on Sunday can see ; 
but this has not made it more respectable, for it is addressed 
to the dregs of the population collected from the street- 
crossings. The temperance propaganda, which is also carried 
on in the streets, is addressed to the same social class. 
Political outdoor gatherings, not having even the possible 
excuse of saving souls, were in bad odour up to a recent date ; 
they had something at once common and revolutionary about 
them. True, in the old days, under the Georges, “ county 
meetings ” occasionally assembled in the open air on a green; 


would accrue to the Liberal and Radical Union of London from adopting the 
air of Two Lovely Black Eyes for the songs. Pull Mall Gazette, 7th April, 
1887. 


396 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





but their accessories were not so much vulgar as rustic, the 
political life of the nation being at that time concentrated not 
in the towns, but in the rural part of the country, in the 
counties. These gatherings, at which freeholders alone could 
speak, and which the rest attended only as spectators, were 
almost official functions; they were presided over by the 
sheriff. Occasionally, mostly at times of agricultural crises, 
they discussed the economic situation and incidentally politics 
as well.’ It was only in the towns, amid vast agglomerations 
of people brought together by the great outburst of industry, 
that outdoor political assemblages, with their character of 
menace to public order, came into fashion, when the first 
mutterings of revolt were heard among the working classes. 
The disappearance of great popular agitations, completed by 
the extension of the suffrage to the urban masses, has deprived 
gatherings of this kind of their revolutionary acuteness, while 
the patronage bestowed on them by the party Associations, 
anxious to attract the multitude, made open-air meetings if not 
respectable, at all events acceptable. At the outset, many an 
influential member of the Caucus, even among its founders at 
Birmingham, felt scruples about encouraging them, but the 
great organizer asserted that they were “excellent for raising 
enthusiasm,” and they let things take their course. Nowadays 
no speaker or politician, even of the highest rank, would refuse 
to address an open-air meeting; even the “last Whigs” are 
obliged to submit to it to get at the masses, just like the 
ultra-Radical speakers, ranting in public thoroughfares, who 
are called and who humorously style themselves “ gutter poli- 
ticians.” The Tories are not less ready to take to open-air 
meetings.” 


1Cf. H. Jephson, The Platform, I, 575, and the passage quoted from the 
Lettres sur l’ Angleterre, in 1825, by Staél-Holstein, the husband of Madame 
de Staél. 

2In the Tory party, but outside its official organization, a special league 
has recently been founded to compete with the Radical propaganda in the 
streets of London. This: organization, which has taken the title of The Con- 
stitutional Open-Air League, is composed of workingmen, who on Sunday 
“hold open-air meetings in places which were hitherto left to the Radical 
and Socialist demagogues.’”’ Thereupon orthodox casuists raised the question 
whether the Fourth Commandment was not broken by talking politics on the 
Sabbath, to which other casuists triumphantly rejoined that there could be po 
harm in preventing ‘‘a poor workingman from falling into the Socialist pit on 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 397 





With the meetings are connected the party demonstrations. 
These are large extraordinary gatherings, the principal object 
of which is to convey an impression of the numerical strength 
of the party and of its enthusiasm. The display of these 
forces is intended again to stimulate the zeal of the rank 
and file, to give confidence to the leaders, and finally to carry 
away the waverers, to win them by the contagion of en- 
thusiasm. The mise-en-scéne here consequently comes before 
the oratory. Those who take part in the demonstration arrive 
in a procession with flags and banners, to the sound of drums 
and fifes. Special trains are organized to bring people from 
the neighbourhood at reduced fares. If the meeting is a 
particularly large one, improvised speakers address the crowd 
which has not been able to get into the hall, in another build- 
ing or even on the staircase (overflow meeting). When the 
demonstration takes place out of doors, several platforms are 
erected from which the orators speak simultaneously. The 
voting of the resolutions is sometimes accompanied by blasts 
from a trumpet. Evening open-air demonstrations present an 
opportunity for lighting torches and marching with lanterns in 
the hand. The proportions and the programme of demonstra- 
tions, however, vary a good deal. Every meeting of exceptional 
importance assumes the character of a demonstration, even if 
there is no great display, so that it is not always easy to draw 
the line between a demonstration and a meeting; a “mass 
meeting,” a meeting with “big guns” imported from London, 
fully answers the purpose aimed at by demonstrations. The 
peripatetic gatherings of the general meetings of the Grand 
Caucus with its thousands of delegates, or even of its district 
_ branches, belong to the same category. The great demonstra- 
tions, being difficult to organize and entailing considerable 
expense, are comparatively rare. To a certain extent they fol- 
low the lead of political events; when the latter stir up party 
spirit, or when the managers of the caucuses want to raise it 
to a higher pitch, the demonstrations serve to make it break 
out; sometimes, on the other hand, when a complete calm 
prevails, they are administered as a heroic remedy, to rouse 


the Sabbath Day,’’ and that the members of the League ought to continue 
to ‘‘go forth on the Sabbath to speak for their God, their Queen, and their 
country ”’ (England, Jan. 1892). 


898 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurirp part 





an apathetic and sluggish constituency on which the ordinary 
stimulants of the Caucus have had no effect. 

In the rural districts with their scattered population, utterly 
indifferent to politics, meetings have not been able to develop 
to the same extent as in the towns. Besides, it is not always 
easy to find a room, or, occasionally, an audience. Sometimes 
people are afraid of attracting notice by going to a meeting of 
either party, and of offending the landlord or the employer who 
holds different political views. But this is the exception. As a 
general rule, everybody goes to the meetings as they would to 
a play. For some time past the Organizations have tried to 
make the performance attractive as well as effective, especially 
by means of travelling vans provided with speakers. These 
latter travel about like hawkers or gypsies, in carts which serve 
them as a house and have a kitchen, bedroom, etc. The ring- 
ing of a bell or the blowing of a trumpet announces the entry of 
the van into the village, where it at once attracts general atten- 
tion by its exterior, the ornaments, the flags, the portraits of 
the great leaders of the party covering the panels of the 
vehicle. A notice sent round from house to house invites the 
inhabitants to the meeting in the evening. Sometimes it is 
circulated by the village children, to whom handbills with piet- 
ures are distributed. The meeting takes place indoors, like 
ordinary meetings, with a committee or at all events a chair- 
man who introduces the speaker to the audience, or out-of-doors 
on the village green. In the latter case the van supplies the 
platform from which the speaker addresses the crowd. He 
often illustrates his speech with pictures from a magic lan- 
tern: portraits of party celebrities or scenes relating to po- 
litical events. The van is provided for this purpose with 
compressed gas and other accessories required for making 
projections on a screen. The meetings are not the only 
opportunity which the speaker has of carrying on his propa- 
ganda; he accosts persons he meets on the road, he stops 
before the smallest crowd. He calls on people to catechise 
them in private. At the meetings and on every other occasion 
he distributes political pamphlets gratuitously. This method 
of propaganda has a good deal of success in the villages, owing 
to the attraction of novelty which it offers and to the curiosity 
which it excites; but it is too expensive for party organiza- 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 399 





tions, which are always in want of funds, to be able to make 
much use of it. 


VI 


Next to the meetings come the lectures, as an instrument 
of party propaganda. While the speeches at the meetings 
are by their nature more or less polemical, the lectures are 
supposed to be above all didactical. Being more objective both 
in form and substance, their aim is to instruct the audience on 
particular subjects connected with politics. This character 
no doubt should give the lectures the first place in the logical 
order of instruments of political education, but in practice 
they come far behind the platform. The number of political 
lectures delivered to popular audiences is continually decreas- 
ing in the country. This phenomenon is due to two causes: 
the party Organizations are sparing of lectures, and the pub- 
lic does not appreciate them enough, does not take to them. 
In fact, the share assigned to lectures in the labours of the 
official Organizations has never been considerable. The Tories 
have only recently become propagandists, at a time when, 
being unable to hold their own by means of “influences,” they 
found themselves obliged to appeal also to the public intelli- 
gence. With the Liberals, on the other hand, lectures were 
formerly much in vogue, but when the Caucus began to take 
up the work of political propaganda, it directed its main 
efforts to “organization” and agitation by meetings, and 
thrust lectures into the background. This was the very point 
in which it differed from the Liberal Organizations of the 
opposite type, such as the National Reform Union and the 
London and Counties’ Union, which held, as we are aware, 
that the future of the Liberal party depended, not on the 
management of voters, but on the development of political 
education in the true meaning of the word. “Ignorance is 
the mother of Toryism,” exclaimed the organ of the Reform 
Union, “and the present generation is lamentably ignorant.” ? 
The Reform Union, as well as the London Union during its 
short existence, held one lecture after another, whereas the 
Birmingham Caucus (with its branches) started twenty or 


1 Manchester Critic, 24th January, 1879. 


400 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruarrep parr 





thirty meetings in which “enthusiasm was raised” for one 
lecture. Having become, after 1886, master of the organiza- 
tion of the party throughout the country, the Liberal Caucus 
has not changed its ways; it has even become more engrossed 
in demonstrations and electioneering. 

On the other hand, it is only just to point out that the very 
moderate zeal of the caucuses for lectures is in no way stimu- 
lated by the public. There are not many people who care for 
the political lectures which are provided: sometimes, it would 
appear, the lecturers do not know how to interest their audi- 
ences; at others their language is above the heads of the public 
which they address; or again their subjects are not happily 
chosen. ‘There is doubtless a large element of truth in these 
explanations, but the great, the primary, reason which over- 
shadows all the others is that by far the greater part of the 
English masses are still unable to take an intelligent interest 
in political questions. They lack the rudiments of culture 
and the mental discipline necessary to concentrate their atten- 
tion for half an hour on a subject outside the preoccupations 
of their daily life.’ It is needless to add that there is a mi- 
nority, very small it is true, to which this remark is not 
applicable. There are exceptions, there are even exceedingly 
brilliant ones. In Lancashire, and higher up in the north 
of England, as well as in Scotland, workmen can be found 
who possess a political culture very superior to that of many 
a member of the House of Commons. But the vast majority 
of the people have no interest in or intelligence for political 
matters. Kept by the old ruling classes in ignorance, partly 
by design, partly through neglect, they have been abruptly 
“brought within the pale of the Constitution” by the cal- 
culations and the manceuvres of the parties, in their head- 
long race for power. After the event people saw that they 
must “educate their masters,” and they set to work to teach 
them the alphabet. In this respect the Education Act has 
produced important results, —it has spread instruction far 
and wide in the country. The number of illiterate persons 
has fallen remarkably low, but the intellectual standard of 
the masses has scarcely risen. One might almost say that it 
has rather declined; for they turn out a smaller proportion of 
people who take a really thoughtful interest in politics than 


SECOND cHAaP.]| THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 401 





formerly. In fact, there is more reading but less thinking, 
much less than there used to be. “Twenty or thirty years 
ago,” as a veteran of the élite of the working class remarked, 
“the people read one book; now they-only read ephemeral 
things.” Even in popular circles where people plume them- 
selves on advanced ideas, where they talk of principles, of 
rights, they read little or nothing, and contine themselves to 
retailing stereotyped phrases which have become common 
property. In its somewhat pathetic form, the following ex- 
clamation of an old working-man was only a true picture of 
the real state of things: “In my time, sir, no one talked of the 
‘Rights of Man’ without having read Thomas Paine! Every- 
body who laid claim to be a Radical had read Paine, had read 
Ernest Jones.” In fact, they were read and other authors 
besides. The fervour of the fiery American apostle and the 
lyrical effusions of the English agitator were far from monopo- 
lizing the people’s minds; even the rigid dialectic of Bentham 
penetrated into these circles. Societies of working-men 
bought books wholesale at a reduced price, to retail them to 
their members at cost price. Clubs for study were formed, 
composed of twenty or thirty persons, in which  »olitical 
works were read and discussed, as, by the way, used to be 
done at a more remote epoch, full of gloomy memories for the 
people, during the years which followed the Peace of 1815, 
in the Hampden Clubs, the members of which met regularly 
once a week for reading and discussion. At the present time 
the principal, if not the only, political pabulum of the great 
majority of the people is the newspapers, and even they are 
read in another way, and different things are read in them 
than used to be the case. Formerly, before the repeal of the 
paper duty in 1860, a working-man could not afford to buy a 
newspaper; the whole workshop subscribed, they took in a 
paper at a penny an hour; one of them read it, and the rest 
listened to him in solemn silence and with unflagging atten- 
tion. Then the comments began; the cleverer ones discussed 
and explained the subject, and every one learnt something. 
Now, with the development of the cheap Press, a workman 
can buy a newspaper all to himself for a halfpenny, and can 
read it alone and take what he likes from it. Being full of 


1 Bamford, 7. 
VOL. I—2D 


402 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





small items of news, the paper, instead of concentrating the 
attention of the reader, makes it flit from paragraph to para- 
graph, and in the long run brings more weariness than rest 
or food to the mind. As arule, there is only one part of the 
paper which is read with serious attention, — the columns de- 
voted to sport. The interest in sport, including betting, has 
become a regular endemic disease, which ravages the country. 
If people do not lose their money over it, they squander their 
capacity for curiosity on it; in the workshop sport is talked, 
during the meals which are eaten in common the last match 
is discussed, in the groups standing about in the streets of an 
evening or on Sunday football remains the topic of conversa- 
tion, in nine cases out of ten. Not to mention the public- 
houses, the music-halls and concert-rooms in the large towns 
have their share in diverting the workmen from improving 
their minds. The conditions of labour in modern industry, 
to which the opponents of industrialism impute all the mis- 
chief, do in fact tend to the same result. Bound lke a slave 
to his machine, isolated amidst the great mass of operatives in 
the factory, the worker is prevented not only from getting into 
touch with his comrades’ ideas, but from having ideas himself, 
from thinking of anything whatever. After his crushingly mo- 
notonous day’s work, he leaves the factory worn out, incapable 
of paying attention to anything that demands a mental effort. 

Of late years no doubt the active Socialist propaganda has 
produced a certain intellectual awakening in popular circles. 
Economic questions are much discussed; they have become a 
subject of arduous study for many an artisan and many a 
small employé. Just as their predecessors of forty or fifty 
years back got as far as Bentham, they grapple with Karl 
Marx. But a different spirit animates the two generations, 
and it does not fail to produce different effects. The former, 
inspired by rationalist individualism, had no belief other than 
reason, and professed no dogmas which could prejudge its con- 
clusions, whereas the men of the present generation, provided 
with a definite ideal of social organization, with the collectivist 
ideal, make this an immutable creed, and it is only within the 
four corners of it that they admit free enquiry, in which they 
indulge solely for the purpose of building themselves up more 
strongly in their faith. The one, if it is permissible to put 


SECOND cHAP.] ‘THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 405 





it in this way, reflected the scientific spirit which emancipates 
and elevates, the other is imbued with the theological spirit 
which enslaves and degrades, the intellect. 

This intellectual movement, however, started by economic 
problems, and confined to those problems, affects only a small 
fraction of the masses, a small sect. For the great majority, 
what has been said above of its intellectual condition still 
remains true. No doubt, the cheap Press and the political 
agitation carried on by the parties have brought into general 
circulation many facts and ideas which in their career have 
reached a number of people who before that never came across 
them. The questions of the day which divide the parties have 
consequently become much more familiar to the people than 
they have ever been, which leads a good many persons to say 
that working-men are now “well up in politics.” But in the 
great majority of cases they assimilate the facts and the argu- 
‘ments by an absolutely automatic process, which is in a way 
thrust on them by the very conditions in which these facts and 
arguments are presented, and it is more by the senses that they 
take them in. Their want of intellectual discipline predis- 
poses them still more than the other strata of society to the 
momentary and fugitive impressions of the feverish and agi- 
tated existence which is the feature of the age, and which has 
infected even the phlegmatic temperament of the English race. 
The paltry rudiments of culture diffused among the masses 
have rather been instrumental, for the moment, in developing 
a state of nervousness, of excitement, which at one time fosters 
a continuous dissatisfaction, at another, and more often, tries 
to find a vent in strong and constantly recurring sensations. 

The character of the lectures provided by the party Organi- 
zations was by no means calculated to soothe this restlessness. 
The lectures being never objective, but being always intended, 
in more or less guarded language, to enforce the catechism of 
the party, the logic of instinct told the masses that it was not 
worth while beating about the bush, that it was better to strike 
home and hit hard than to bore them with asermon. ‘Turning 
almost invariably on party politics, and always with an apolo- 
getic purpose, the lectures harped on the same ideas, repro- 
duced the same formulas. “They have nothing new to say,” 
is a remark I have often heard. In contrast to this, the 


404 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





meetings with their fiery harangues, the demonstrations with 
all their accessories, offered the multitudes a show, a distrac- 
tion, amounting to a kind of sport. The Caucus, which, being 
anxious above all to succeed, thought it more easy, looking to 
the intellectual condition of the masses, to “raise enthusiasm ” 
than to appeal to reason, consequently found itself in perfect 
touch with the popular tendencies. Thus, through the con- 
nivance of the public and the Caucus, the form of political 
propaganda best suited for disciplining the mind and storing 
it has given way to methods which act mainly on the imagina- 
tion, on the nerves; the quiet lecture-rooms are deserted for 
the exciting meetings.’ 

In the country districts lecturing is more developed and 
meets with more success, relatively speaking. As the news- 
papers are read but little or not at all by the villagers, and 
as political meetings occur only at rare intervals in rural 
localities, the Associations endeavour, with more or less zeal, 
to make good the deficiency by lectures, especially in the south 
of England. The quieter life and the absence of distractions 
among the village people make them more inclined for lectures 
than the townsfolk. At village lectures the audience is gener- 
ally composed of adherents of both:parties; curiosity attracts 
to them Liberals and Tories alike; but there is never any dis- 
cussion, and it is very seldom that questions are put to the 
lecturer; from timidity or prudence, in order not to betray 
their political preferences, people hold their tongue. Some- 
times the schoolmaster or some other strong-minded member 
of the party opposed to that of the lecturer ventures to draw 
attention to the “pernicious” doctrines laid down by the 
latter. But this is the exception; as a rule, there are no more 
manifestations of opinion at the lectures than at the meetings 
and the visits of the travelling vans. The mind of the rusties, 
like the soil which they cultivate, does not show the effect 
produced till later on. 


1 Making allowance for this state of things, the London and Counties 
Liberal Union resorted, in the last months of its existence, in 1886, to small 
stratagems to procure audiences for its lecturers; it requested them to adver- 
tise their lecture as a ‘‘ political address ”’ or even to summon meetings, with 
their usual accessories, for the delivery of the lecture, in which case the lec- 
turer appeared in the disguise of a ‘‘ Deputation of the London and Counties 
Liberal Union.” 


seconD cHaPp.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 405 





The lectures organized by the clubs, as well as by the Asso- 
ciations, are delivered partly by local amateurs, partly by 
persons invited from outside, and also by professional lec- 
turers. The first and the second give their services gratui- 
tously; the strangers are only allowed their travelling expenses, 
when they are not obliging enough to pay them themselves. 
The professional lecturers are paid. The Association of the 
constituency, the Caucus, contributes the fees, while the people 
of the locality in which the lecture is held defray the cost of 
advertising and the hire of the room. As in the case of the 
meetings, the organizers of lectures on the look-out for lec- 
turers communicate with them directly or through the medium 
of the central organizations. One of the obligations of the 
latter in regard to the affiliated Associations consists precisely 
in supplying them with lecturers, either voluntary or at all 
events paid. In the latter case the central Organizations act 
as registry offices. The big party Organizations, with regular 
lecturers whom they send, spontaneously or on application, 
to say a word in season, are: on the Conservative side, the 
National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associa- 
tions and the Primrose League; on the Liberal side, the 
National Liberal Federation and the National Reform Union 
(of Manchester), which from its first appearance had made 
the development of political education the aim and object of 
its existence. 

In re-reading the above pages in proof-sheets, I note that 
since they were written, some years ago, the importance of 
the lectures given by the party Organizations, which I have 
had to qualify so much, has still further diminished; at the 
present moment they are at the lowest ebb. Even the activity 
of the Manchester Reform Union has become, in the matter 
of lectures, almost non-existent. 

For some time past the Organizations have employed politi- 
cal educators of a different kind to the lecturers, — “ political 
missionaries.” Sometimes these missionaries are professionals, 
who work all the year, travelling from place to place to deliver 
political addresses or speeches at open-air meetings. Thus 
the Central Conservative Office has in its pay a group of 
“missionaries” of this kind. Sometimes, and more often, 
they are secret emissaries who have another regular employ- 


406 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp parr 





ment and accept temporary missions for a few weeks. Gener- 
ally workmen by trade, they penetrate into popular circles to 
advertise the party which employs them, to defend its pro- 
gramme in quasi-spontaneous conversations. The Liberals 
and the Conservatives both make use of emissaries, but with 
the latter this practice is, it would appear, much more devel- 
oped and systematized. The modus operandi of the emissaries 
in the Tory organization is as follows. Sent by the represen- 
tative of the Central Conservative Office of the district, the 
emissary arrives in a Division with a letter of introduction 
for the Chairman of the local Tory organization. This letter 
accredits him, gets him the assistance of this organization, 
and at the same time places him under its supervision. His 
chief who has despatched him hears about him from the local 
Tory Chairmen as the missionary gradually makes his way 
through the district. He never speaks at meetings, but works 
privately and incognito; he conducts his operations in public- 
houses, or wherever he can find a group of persons and start a 
conversation on politics as if by chance. He tries to challenge 
a Radical leader who is present to a debate, he fastens on the 
“bombastic Radical” of the village, and if he comes off best 
in the dialectical encounter, he destroys the latter’s prestige 
and his political influence with his neighbours. Of course the 
missionaries are always sent into parts of the country where 
they are not known. After having discharged their mission, 
they return to their regular occupations. The party Organi- 
zations find a sufficient number of them to meet their require- 
ments. 


Vil 


After the meetings, the le and the missionaries, which 


furnish methods of collective propaganda among more or less 
large gatherings of citizens, the party Organizations engage 
in_individual political education by means of the gratuitous 
distribution of “political literature,” that is to say, pamphlets 
andother printed matter relating to politics. The greater part 
of this “literature” is made up in London by the central 
party Organizations. A large number of copies being printed, 
the publications are sold to the local Associations by hundreds 
































SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 407 





or thousands at a cheap rate. The latter have the “litera- 
ture” distributed at the meetings which they organize, or 
sometimes, in the villages for instance, send them round from 
house to house. It has been stated above that this operation 
forms part of the duties of the itinerant speakers of travelling 
vans. Dealing with the questions of the day which divide the 
parties, or those about which they fought in the past, the 
pamphlets, whether they are reprints of speeches or of lectures 
by the party orators, or are written for the occasion, almost 
always have an electioneering twang about them. Finance, 
legislation, foreign politics, — every topic is treated not for its 
own sake, but to induce the reader to vote for this particular 
party and not for another. While some of these publications 
handle their subjects with more or less fulness and propriety 
in tone and form, the others are simply electioneering pro- 
spectuses, which, if they do not prove it, assert that every good 
thing comes from their party whereas the other party has 
never done the country anything but harm. Not that these 
pamphlets are wholly made up of general clap-trap, there are 
plenty of facts and figures in them, but they prove rather that 
there is a different history and statistics for the special use of 
each party. Figures are quoted to demonstrate that pauperism 
and erime become rife directly this or that party returns to 
power. Care is also taken to give these prospectuses an argu- 
mentative appearance by presenting them in the form of “70 
good reasons why you should vote for the Liberals,” but their 
logic is anything but strict!’ Along with the pamphlets, which 
form the substantial element of the literature, a great number 
of leaflets are published, small sheets of two or three pages, 
intended for readers who would not be able to tackle anything 
of greater length or with more argument. The political ques- 
tion and its solution or the catch-word of the party are stated 


1 Thus, for instance, this last pamphlet, after having given ‘‘ more than 70 
good reasons,”’ broaches the question why ‘‘ the country is more prosperous 
under a Liberal than under a Conservative Government ?’’ and replies as fol- 
lows: ‘‘ Because the Liberals, by a good policy, improve good times, and alle- 
viate the bad; while the Conservatives, by a bad policy, make bad times 
worse. How is that? A bad policy produces uneasiness and want of enter- 
prise. Uneasiness and want of enterprise produce depression in trade and 
want of employment. Depression in trade and want of employment produce 
an increase of Taxation, Debt, Misery, Pauperism, and Crime” (Why I shall 
vote for the Liberal Candidates, Lond. 1885, p. 11). 


408 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





altogether grosso modo to make them sink more readily into 
the mind. 

It is somewhat difficult to form an opinion on the effect of 
the “literature” distributed by the Organizations, but the 
assertion may confidently be made that it is far less consider- 
able than the latter imagine. The pamphlets are little read. 
They are of use rather to second-rate speakers, who take their 
arguments from them. The leaflets are read a great deal, and 
some of them are liked. During the election campaign they 
are distributed by millions.’ The productions of political 
iconography brought in during the last few years by the 
Organizations are also much appreciated, the coloured pict- 
ures with political subjects which not only take the eye but 
appeal directly to the emotions. Of this kind, for instance, 
are the compositions relating to recent events in Ireland, 
by means of which the Gladstonians represented the cruel 
conduct of the police in the pay of the Unionist Govern- 
ment, while the Unionists portrayed, with a similar abundance 
of chromolithography, scenes of assassinations committed by 
the moonlighters on tenants who had refused to join the 
Land League. The struggle of labour against capital, against 
the landlords, also furnishes subjects for pictures. They make 
a deep impression, especially on women, who know how to 
pass them on to the men with the naive and passionate power 
of persuasion which Michelet has described with his poet’s 
penetration.’ 

Beyond the “ literature” which they manufacture themselves, 
and which they supplement by a few publications issued else- 
where, the Organizations of the parties do not offer the voters 
other resources in the way of reading. Asa rule, in England 
the Associations have no libraries or reading-rooms. On the 
other hand, in Scotland reading-rooms established by the 
Associations are common. It is worthy of notice that it is 
the Tories who started the reading-rooms, and that the Liberal 
Associations have only followed their lead. In their efforts 
to emerge from the condition of a small minority, to which 


1¥For instance, the central Liberal Organization distributed more than 
twenty-three millions of leaflets during the election campaign of 1895. 

2 See his chapter on ‘‘ Le Prétre, la femme et la Vendée”’ in L’ Histoire de 
la Révolution frangaise, liv. VIII. 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 409 





they are reduced in Scotland, the Conservatives are more on 
the look-out for possible methods of propaganda.? 


ea oun 


Thus when all is said and done, after having carefully 
pointed out all the forms in which the Organizations of the 
official parties distribute political education, or what they are 
pleased to call by that name, the result is that the amount of 
it which they provide is altogether insignificant, and that the 
little which they do give is poisoned by party spirit. In any 
event, their supply is far below existing requirements, and the 
latter would have remained even more unsatisfied than they are, 
if they had not other aids at their disposal. Of these some are 
of a political nature, and others not. In the front rank we 
must place the Press, i.e. the organs of the parties, which the 
latter themselves consider as their most valuable auxiliaries. 
A good many representatives of Associations even hold that 
the Press explains political questions to the electorate so com- 
pletely and satisfactorily as to make it unnecessary for them 
to take any thought for political education. In reality it is 
only as a channel of political information that the newspapers 
contribute to the enlightenment of the public, and even this 
statement requires qualification. But as for improving the 
political judgment of their readers, the great majority of the 
newspapers utterly fails to do so. No doubt, if the standpoint 
of the Organizations is adopted, for whom the education of the 
voters consists in crying up the doings of the party in question 
to them, and in inspiring hatred and disgust for the opposite 
party, it must be admitted that, with a certain number of 
exceptions, the Press performs its task very creditably. But 
that very fact evidently disqualifies it from discharging its real 
duty, which is to enlighten the reader. This is above all the 


1 Of late, under the auspices of the political parties, circulating lending 
libraries have been organized which distribute books in the provinces free 
of charge. On the Liberal side this duty has been undertaken by the 
National Club of London, which sends boxes of books into the villages with 
permission to keep them for a few months. The Club has about a hundred 
boxes in circulation. The Association of the Conservative clubs recently 
founded in London follows this example. In each box containing thirty to 
fifty volumes there is always a certain number of works on politics. 


410 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurep part 





case with the papers written for the masses, the evening 
journals especially, which, by dint of offering their public 
highly spiced stuff that tickles the palate of the multitude, 
have so far perverted their taste as to make them think every 
political article written with moderation insipid.! Of course 
the controversial violence and the habitual parti-pris of the 
newspapers disgust the more intelligent readers, and already 
the exaggerations in which the Press indulges are seen to turn 
against it. In fact, the public no longer has its old belief in 
the leading article, and the number of persons who systemati- 
cally abstain from reading it, knowing beforehand that it is out- 
rageously biassed, is rapidly increasing. People read the paper 
for its non-political news, and often vote with its opponents. 
I have frequently had occasion to note that in a locality where 
the Press of the party is prosperous, where, for instance, the 
latter has three papers with a good circulation to one of the 
opposite political persuasion, the party is beaten at the elec- 
tions, sometimes badly beaten.? I have noticed similar facts in 
Yorkshire, in Lancashire, and in the Midlands, in manufact- 
uring towns as well as in rural districts. The country voter 
often again has special reasons for distrusting the newspaper; 
he considers it “very clever,” and is afraid of being taken 
in by it; he trusts more to intelligent friends or neighbours; he 
is sure that Jim, his pal, will not set a trap for him, will tell 
him the real truth, will show him exactly how to vote. Yet, 
if from a certain point of view the political Press is losing 
ground, it none the less remains a formidable power; if the 
voter does not take his politics from the paper, it confirms 
him in his party preferences or prejudices, and, by an action 
analogous to that of water dripping on a stone, keeps him 
loyal to the party; in any event the newspapers provide the 
parties and their organizations with a highly effective means 
of publicity. 

1 In a town in the east of England, where I found a newspaper edited with 
real regard for dignity in language and in controversy with opponents, I com- 
plimented the people of the locality on it. ‘* Ah, sir, it would be better for us 
not to have a paper at all than to have that one!’’ ‘‘Howso?’”’ ‘‘ Why, it’s 
not a paper; it’s milk and water.” 

2 The secretary of a caucus remarked: ‘‘ While the only newspaper of our 
political opponents exists simply on the subsidies of the party, we have three 


and all doing well, but I will make a bet that these three papers have not 
secured us three voters.”’ 


SECOND cHAP.| THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 411 





Next to the Press, in the series of instruments of political 
propaganda other than the Organizations of the two great 
parties, come various political societies and associations, each 
of which pursues a particular object, either to bring about a cer- 
tain legislative reform in the State, or to oppose it. Such, for 
instance, are the Land Restoration League, to obtain the 
nationalization of the soil; the Free Land League, to secure 
agrarian reforms of a less radical description; the United 
Kingdom Alliance, to pass prohibitive measures against the 
consumption of alcoholic drinks; the Liberation Society, to 
compel the separation of Church and State; the Church Defence 
Institution, to defend the Church against the attacks of the 
Liberationists; the Liberty and Property League, to resist 
socialistic tendencies in legislation; the Fabian Society, to 
carry on a Socialist propaganda, etc. All these societies stir 
up the country, appeal to public opinion by means of lectures 
and publications on the cause which they have at heart.1. Un- 
like the official party Organizations, they are not hampered by 
a general party creed, do not make it a condition of adhesion 
to the ideas which they profess, but recommend the latter for 
their own sake, although in point of fact they are nearly all 
allied with one or the other party. In any event, however 
useful the intellectual action brought to bear by these societies 
may be, their educational activity none the less belongs to 
the category of selfish propaganda, so to speak. 


IX 


Several broadminded men have therefore come to the con- 
clusion that political education, to be really worthy of the 
name and to answer its purpose, ought to be unconnected 
with any political Organization, and a fortiori with the Organi- 
zations of the regular parties. Attempts have been made to 
give shape to this idea. Thus, soon after 1868, when the 


1 The Fabian Society is specially remarkable for the considerable efforts 
which it makes on behalf of economic education by means of lectures, lending 
libraries, and correspondence classes, in which people are told what to read 
on a particular question, are given bibliographical and other notes, and are 
invited to send to the committee of the society a short paper, which is re- 
turned to them with corrections. 


412 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





party politicians flung themselves on the urban masses who 
had received the franchise, like a wild beast on its prey, a 
few disinterested friends of the new voters founded a “ League 
for the political education of working-men,” which proposed, 
by means of classes, lectures, and debates, to give the men of 
the people a political culture devoid of party spirit. But it 
did not meet with the sympathy necessary to make the under- 
taking a success. Some time afterwards a few distinguished 
University men, with the historian J. R. Seeley at their head, 
gave their co-operation to the League which, under the name 
of “Social and Political Educational League,” pursues its 
work by. striving to “ promote the formation of public opinion 
in reference to Politics, Government, Land, Capital and 
Labour, Finance, Colonies, and national well-being generally, 
upon the basis of History, Social Science, and Political Phi- 
losophy.” The League declines to favour any party whatever 
or to proselytize in any other way. Its object is the cultiva- 
tion of the political mind. The principal mode of action of 
the League consists of lectures, which it provides gratuitously 
by voluntary lecturers (belonging mostly to the Universities 
of Cambridge and Oxford). The audience is invited to put 
questions to the lecturer and to start a discussion with the 
co-operation of persons of different parties and diverse opinions. 

The success of the League, however, leaves a great deal to 
be desired. Apart from its good intentions, it is short of 
everything, of material resources, of lecturers, and of audi- 
ences. The parties absorb all, — money, men of action, and the 
public. The number of lectures which it manages to give 
declines rather from year to year. Without having ever 
reached the figure of six hundred, it has fallen of late years 
below fifty. The area over which the lecturers of the League 
conduct their operations rarely extends beyond London with 
its suburbs. Having only absurdly small sums at its disposal, 
— from forty pounds to eighty pounds a year,— it cannot set 
up an organization of its own; in the matter of lecturers it 
has to be satisfied with volunteer helpers, and to find audiences 
it is obliged to apply to those who are already enrolled in other 
organizations, political, religious, or economic. In the vast 
majority of cases it meets only with indifference. The first 
look on the activity of the League, if not as a disloyal compe- 


SECOND CHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 413 





tition or an unwholesome propaganda of scepticism or political 
dilettanteism, at all events as useless; — for are they not en- 
gaged in “educating” the voters themselves, and, of course, in 
the best possible way ?—the second are too prone to distrust all 
instruction given outside them and their regular friends, they 
scent heresy and heterodoxy in every quarter; the third are 
too preoccupied with their dividends when their interest in 
political questions has not been exhausted in the “ politics” 
of the parties with which they are connected in their capacity 
of voters. In these conditions the University spheres which 
give the impulse to the undertaking carried on by the League, 
spheres foreign to the social strata upon which it wishes 
to work, add nothing to its strength, and the presence at its 
head of historians, of thinkers, of eminent scholars,' is not 
so useful to it as would be the patronage of the plutocrats 
and the politicians who are all-powerful in the electoral con- 
stituencies. But these latter would be the last to take an 
interest in a work of this kind, not excepting the official politi- 
cal leaders of the people, the Members of Parliament. Of 
670 Members of Parliament, not half a dozen subscribe to the 
League. In fact, the object and the utility of its labours are 
beyond the intelligence of the majority of the Honourable 
Members. In their eyes politics is a race between two crews 
called Liberals and Tories; everything else dignified with the 
name is “philosophy,” and is it necessary to make philoso- 
phers of the voters, when all they need is to know whom to vote 
for, for the Tories or for the Liberals, and in this respect they 
certainly get plenty of information and advice of an equally 
convincing and urgent character? Party spirit has not spared 
the lecturers of the League even, and in 1886 its managers had 
to weed them out and require from them a written engagement 
not to treat subjects from the standpoint of a particular party. 
It is the business of the League to combat party spirit, which 
has poisoned the whole atmosphere of English political life 
with its miasma, but it has all the more difficulty in driving 
it out because its lecturers generally address audiences belong- 
ing to the same party, mostly in Liberal and Radical clubs. 


1 The list of former Presidents of the League includes Messrs. James Bryce, 
A. V. Dicey, J. A. Froude, S. R. Gardiner, Frederic Harrison, T. H. Huxley, 
J. R. Seeley, Leslie Stephen. 


414 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [THIRD PART 





The Conservative Organizations will not accept the services 
of the League. In a few rare cases non-political organiza- 
tions, such as co-operative or religious societies, apply to it. 


x 


After having exhausted the slender resources provided by the 
political Organizations and agencies (such as the Organizations 
and the Press of the parties, as well as the associations for 
promoting particular objects) and by the organizations which 
aim at political culture and are independent of the parties (such 
as the Social and Political Education League), there remains 
for the improvement of the political education of the voters a 
third and last resource, which is by no means the least impor- 
tant one. This consists of the manifold organizations for the 
general culture of adults, in which more or less attention is 
paid to subjects connected with politics. Besides the educa- 
tional establishments of this kind, which give evening classes, 
such as the Mechanics’ Institute, the University Extension 
groups, the Reading Unions, etc., which sometimes discuss 
questions of government, of history, or of political economy, 
or recommend books or chapters of works bearing thereon, 
special mention must be made of the popular societies, the 
members of which study in common questions of general in- 
terest, including, with letters, science, and art, political or 
social problems, of course on a somewhat modest scale. In 
their meetings the members communicate to each other the 
result of their reading and their reflections in the form of 
essays or papers, which are often discussed. The most com- 
mon type of these associations for study is known under the 
name of Mutual Improvement Societies. As a rule they are 
connected with the Church organizations. To keep a hold on 
their congregations, or to recover it, the churches in England 
try to satisfy not only their spiritual needs, they have charge 
not only of their souls, but also of their bodies and their 
minds; they get up lay classes and lectures, wholesome amuse- 
ments, gymnastic establishments, clubs and societies of various 
kinds for them. Thus to a good many Nonconformist chapels, 
to Christian Young Men’s Associations under the patronage of 
the Established Church, ete., there are often attached Mutual 


SECOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 415 





Improvement Societies. Although free to all appearances in 
their inner life, and especially in the choice of the subjects of 
study, these societies submit spontaneously, so to speak, to 
clerical influence which does not fail to give a certain im- 
press to their manners as well as to their mind, which is 
loth to venture into untrodden paths. But still the papers, 
on political subjects among others, read in them are none the 
less means of instruction: In Scotland these societies are 
found mostly in the villages; in the towns they have some 
difficulty in meeting the competition of music-halls and similar 
places of amusement. Having often an existence of their 
own, independent of the churches, the Improvement Societies, 
which sometimes affect the more pretentious title of philosophi- 
cal or literary Institutes, recruit their members from all politi- 
cal and ecclesiastical parties. Liberals and Tories meet in 
them, and, keeping on the best of terms, observe perfect toler- 
ance towards each other, even in political discussions, which 
under these circumstances produce excellent results for the 
members of these societies.’ The communications received and 
the impressions gathered by the author on the spot when pre- 
paring this work are unanimous on this point. 


XI 


The debates which constitute one of the forms of intellectual 
training practised in the Mutual Improvement Societies are 
the exclusive object of other bodies, known in consequence by 
the name of Debating Societies. The origin of these institu- 
tions, which could only have arisen in a time-honoured land 
of liberty, dates from the eighteenth century. After having 


1 The Mutual Improvement Society in Scotland is sometimes the centre of 
enlightenment for a whole rural district. This was especially true of the past, 
of the first half of the Victorian era, as may be seen from the history of a soci- 
ety of this kind narrated in a small book called An Aberdeenshire Village 
Propaganda Forty Years ago, by R. H. Smith, Edinburgh, 1889. The society 
in question, the Rhynie Mutual Instruction Class, started in an out-of-the-way 
village with a dozen members, tradesmen and farmers, endeavoured to im- 
prove their minds, and,.having arrived at satisfactory results, continued its 
labours zealously, trying ‘‘to train its members as writers and speakers.”’’ 
At the same time, through the agency of a correspondence committee, the 
Rhynie Society founded sister societies around it, forming a Union which pub- 
lished its monthly review. 


416 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rurrp parr 





played a certain part in the democratic agitation of the years 
1793-1795 caused by the French Revolution in England, the 
debating societies have again become a peaceful school of the 
art of oratory. With the development of town life which 
followed the great outburst of industry, the debating socie- 
ties spread in the manufacturing cities, where they attracted 
members of the middle class, and in no small degree con- 
tributed to its culture and to the training in its ranks of men 
who know how to speak in public, of debaters. From the 
middle class the taste for debating societies has descended a 
few steps lower in the social scale. In fact, debate gratifies 
not only the love of free discussion, but also the combative 
instinct of the English. For them it is another sort of prize- 
fight, a spectacle which procures violent sensations. In sev- 
eral localities the publicans provide it, to increase their custom, 
on market days, which bring in people from the neighbour- 
hood; they give five shillings to a good talker, who opens the 
debate. In many large business establishments or factories 
with a numerous staff, the latter form, side by side with a 
chess club or a cricket club, a debating society among them- 
selves. The same thing takes place in certain religious organi- 
zations, such as the Young Men’s Christian Associations, which 
have debating classes. But apart from these more or less pri- 
vate gatherings, there are many debating societies regularly 
organized and numbering each hundreds of members admitted 
by introduction and on payment of a yearly subscription. In 
all these societies there are periodically “political nights,” 
i.e. evenings devoted to political discussion. 

Of late years the old institution of debating societies has 
given rise to a new and very interesting species, to the local 
parliaments. These are debating societies which confine them- 
selves to politics and conduct their discussions in accordance 
with all the rules and all the mise-en-scéne of the House of 
Commons. ‘The members fall into party groups just as at 
Westminster. They also have their leaders and their Whips. 
The Cabinet taken from the majority is subject to the same 
rules of ministerial responsibility. The session opens by a 
“Queen’s Speech,” announcing the bills which will be brought 
forward by the Government. The whole procedure, in a word, 
is copied from that of the House of Commons, with the for- 


sEcOND cHAP.] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 417 





tunate modification that the length of the speeches is limited. 
The great originality of these parliamentary debating clubs, 
which are not altogether unknown on the Continent, in Paris 
for instance, consists in the fact that the local parliaments are 
not composed exclusively of young men. Side by side with 
the latter may be seen grey-headed men, magistrates, sober 
tradesmen, manufacturers. In a parliament of the West End 
of London, I have seen a (morganatic) cousin of the Queen, 
a naval officer, on the Treasury bench, holding the office of 
First Lord of the Admiralty, while in a parliament in the 
north of the metropolis I have found a shoemaker discharging 
the analogous functions of Minister of War. Imitating their 
models at Westminster, the members put questions to the 
ministers, bring forward motions and resolutions, introduce 
bills, debate, attack, and defend with all the weapons of 
parliamentary warfare, reasoning, argument, flashes of wit, 
sarcasm, indignation. 

No doubt the conventional character of their labours, which 
after all are only play, weighs heavily on the local parlia- 
ments; it lessens their value as instruments of political educa- 
tion, by accustoming their members to play a part, to strike 
an attitude for the gallery. And what makes things wovse is 
that they have not even got to create their parts; for the 
pieces which they act are exactly the same as those performed 
on the great national stage of the House of Commons, and 
they simply copy the actors on that stage and imitate their 
gestures, their tones, making them still more emphatic if pos- 
sible. Divided into closed and permanent parties, on the 
model of the House of Commons, the members of local parlia- 
ments take up a line beforehand on public questions, espouse 
a cause before they have studied it, and then try to become 
enamoured of it afterwards. In spite of these grave defects, 
the local parliaments are none the less a factor of political 
education which is not to be despised. They force their mem- 
bers to follow the political problems of the day, to deal with 
political facts and ideas, and they enable them to do this to 
a greater extent and with more freedom than there is room 
for in the caucuses. Besides, by bringing men of different 
opinions face to face to discuss both sides of a question, they 
give them the opportunity of knowing each other, and of find- 

VOL. I—2E 


418 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





ing out that their political opponents are not so black as the 
Organizations of the parties paint them for the requirements 
of their electioneering business. It is only to be regretted 
that the local parliaments are not as a rule very long-lived, 
for after a more or less brilliant career of a few years they die 
out. At one time, tired of their part or engrossed by their regu- , 
lar work, the leading actors retire and the companies disperse; 
at another time, after a few sessions, the Conservatives, who 
up till recently had not been in the habit of scrutinizing their 
own opinions or those of other people, are quite played out, 
so that the victorious Liberals are left in possession of the 
field, and the combat comes to an end for want of combatants; 
sometimes, again, personal feeling, questions of amour-propre, 
or social prejudices get in the way. The movement of local 
parliaments has therefore not attained the dimensions and the 
political importance which several persons predicted for it in 
the beginning. Some eminent men had hailed the new insti- 
tution as destined to exert a stronger and healthier influence 
on the course of political life than “that Birmingham creation 
known as the Caucus,” for “the new departure in the national 
political life has this most hopeful aspect,— it is a free, manly, 
and open educational movement.” ! Inside the local parlia- 
ments still greater aspirations for their future were indulged 
in: they would not only serve to train young people in debate, 
and to instruct members in the political questions of the day, 
but they would deliver their verdicts on the great political 
and social reforms, the consideration of which is demanded 
by the welfare of the country; like the federated Chambers of 
Commerce, the local parliaments would also form a federation 
of “chambers of politics,” which would wield the same influ- 
ence in the State as the former in commercial questions.? 
These hopes have not been realized, which is rather a matter 
for congratulation than for regret; for if in a free country the 
sources of political opinion ought to be of infinite variety, po- 
litical authority can only have a single organ; in the matter 
of “chambers of politics” there can only be the chamber, the 
House established by the Constitution and formed by the 


1 Blanchard Jerrold, ‘‘ On the manufacture of public opinion,’’ Nineteenth 
Century, June, 1883. 
2 Speech of the Sydenham Premier, quoted ibid., pp. 1088, 1089. 


SECOND CHAP.]| THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 419 





free suffrages of the nation. The Federation of Local Parlia- 
ments was created a few years ago (in 1892), under the name 
of National Association of Local Parliaments, but it wisely 
confines itself to the modest task of developing the movement 
and helping the existing and rising local parliaments by advice 
on points of procedure and organization, by forwarding them 
political papers, forms of bills and of ministerial declarations, 
ete. To prevent the local parliaments from dying out for want 
of combatants, the National Association communicates with 
the central party Organizations and informs them that in this 
or that local parliament the respective political party is break- 
ing up, in order that the Organization of the party may, for 
the good of the cause, use its authority to stir up its political 
coreligionists of the locality and exhort them to take a more 
active part in the debates of their parliament. The National 
Association of Local Parliaments has secured the patronage of 
several leading political notabilities, with the Lord Chancellor 
at their head, who fill the posts of President and Vice- 
Presidents. 


THIRD CHAPTER 
THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS (continued) 
uf 


Tue propagandist efforts displayed by the party Organiza- 
tions in the forms which have been examined are far from 
reaching the whole, or even the majority, of the electorate. 
Everybody does not go to the WOSULEEE attend the lectures, 
and read the “political literature.” It is not certain that the 
effect produced even on those who are drawn into them is 
of a permanent nature. What is to be done? Attempts were 
made to enlighten the political conscience of the voters, to- 
act on the zoon_politikon. ‘This action proving inadequate, it 

sought to make good the deficiency by pT to the 
animal side of man, to his mstin ‘ity, wi 
joys and pleasures which are connected with it, or W which be 
come enhanced by it. Being provided by the Organizations 
ee through their agency, they are destined to produce an asso- 
\ciation of feelings between all those who are invited to share 
nae and the political parties. As they can be enjoyed only 

by a number of persons assembled together, they supply the 
Organizations with an opportunity and a means at the same 
time of sweeping into this association and carrying the voters 
wholesale, in a lump. 



























Among the varied forms in which the “social tendencies of 
human nature are made subservient to the higher interests” 
of politics, the most important is provided by party clubs. 
The reader is aware of the origin of political clubs and will 
recollect that it dates from the seventeenth century, and that 


for a long time they were_only friendly gatherings of people 

with+thesame political opinions, who met periodically to enjoy 

the pleasures of the table; that it was only with the founding 
420 











THIRD CHAP. ] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 421 





of the Carlton Club (in 1831), and its Liberal rival the Reform 
Club, that clubs became genuine political institutions in which 
the head-quarters of the parties were established, from which 
issued the word of command for political circles in London as 
well as for the provinces.’ The two great clubs gradually lost 
this position in proportion as a Special organization with a 


central registration Association and_local Associati rew 
ior Et ees pty Tle motte @erieak 
the clubs founded in the provinces on the model of the Carlton 
and the Reform. In truth, the part_played by the great_pro- 
vincial clubs in the organization of the party depended more 
on the personal position of their members than on the fact of 
their belonging to the club, which was only the meeting-place 
of the local leaders. Being used as head-quarters by the latter, 
who met there to settle parliamentary candidatures among 
themselves, the clubs were included in the same disfavour by 
the advanced Liberals, who demanded the introduction of the 
popular:principle into the management of the party. And in 
the midst of the controversy raised by the establishment of 
the Caucus, there resounded the cry among others: “ Down 
with the clubs and up with the Caucus!”? Exaggerating the 
power of the clubs somewhat, the advanced party looked 
on them as a hotbed of anti-democratic “social influences,” 
hostile to true Liberalism. At the present moment the official 
club of the party is the centre and instrument of the Organi- 
zation only in places where there is no regular Association. 
Being the only collection of the adherents of the party, it is 
in that case just the body to take in hand matters of organiza- 
tion. In places where there is an Association, — and this is 
in the vast majority of cases, —the club exists side by side 
with it, at one time with an absolutely independent position, 
at another as its social branch, the executive committee of 
the caucus being the managing committee of the club and the 
secretary of the Association obligingly discharging the func- 
tions of manager of the club. On the Tory side the ties 
between the club and the Association are much closer, the 
clubs are always represented on the Councils and the com- 




















1 Vide supra, the origin of political Associations, and of party Organiza- 
tions, p. 145. 
2 Times, Aug. 22, 1878. 


422 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp parr 








mittees of the Associations by special delegates, under the 
statutes. In reality it is even rather the club which pulls the 
strings of the local organization of the party. Associations 
of course had been set up in accordance with all the rules of 
the doctrine of representative Organizations, but it was often 
done against the grain, and in a good many cases they are only 
a make-believe. Generally speaking, it may be said that jn 
the management of the Liberal party the clubs have given way— 
to the Associations ; that among the Tories the Associations 
have less political vigour, while the clubs are more powerful 
than those of their rivals. 





























ET 


But throughout their varying fortunes as leading party 
organs, the clubs preserved and developed their character as 
places of resort for the members of the party, where the latter 
associated on a footing of equality in spite of the difference in 
their extraction and education, where by a daily contact they 
spontaneously kept each other true to the political sentiments 
which formed their connecting link. The Carlton and the 
Reform Club discharged this function on a large scale in the 
capital, while their imitations in the provinces repeated it on 
their own account by bringing together the local gentry and 
the middle class and clothing them in the party atmosphere. 
The Conservatives, being by their temperament more depen- 
dent on social surroundings, and consequently attaching more 
importance to social ties, f owed more readi- 
ness to set up clubs than the LiberaJs. The Tories profited so 
much by this that the Liberals, attributing with some show of 
reason the success of their rivals to the co-operation of the 
clubs, adopted the same policy, after 1874, with more energy 
than before. The Liberal clubs were not only less numerous, 
but many a one had lost its active political spirit and had 
remained simply as a social centre. This was the case in 
particular with the great stronghold of Liberalism in the eapi- 
tal, with the Reform Club. The lukewarm Liberalism of the 
Palmerstonian era made its political atmosphere much milder, 
and of its great traditions the principal remnant is its old and 
glorious reputation for good cookery, which artists from the 


THIRD CHAP. | THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 423 





other side of the Channel had won for it, and which attracted 
to it members without much reference to their political opin- 
ions. Consequently, “to infuse new blood” into Liberalism, 
after several important clubs had been started in the provinces, 
a new general centre for the party was founded in London, 
in 1882, under the name of the National Liberal Club, in- 
tended, according to Lord Derby’s definition repeated by Mr. 
Gladstone, to serve as the great exchange of the Liberal party, 
in which information and impressions as to the condition of 
Liberalism in the country would pass between the members, 
where the Liberals of the provinces would meet those of the 
metropolis, where the leaders would receive deputations, etc. 
In a few years the club has in fact attained this position, and 
it is now in the first rank of English political clubs. If its 
sumptuous premises are not quite up to the Carlton, it has 
the greater number of members, as many as 6500 (including 
country members, who amount to nearly 4000), and its annual 
budget exceeds £70,000. This rapid success of the Liberal 
club is accounted for inter alia by the fact that it has opened 
its doors wide. The number of members being limited in all 
the principal political clubs of London, the limit is fixed at a 
much lower figure in the Tory clubs, while the subscription 
and entrance fee are higher. Thus the Carlton Club has only 
1600 members; but as against that more than 8000 candidates 
are waiting their turn to be admitted, and it is the custom, as 
in several large non-political clubs, to enter candidates at an 
early age, in order that when they have arrived at man’s 
estate they may not have long to wait for a vacancy. This 
applies also to the Junior Carlton Club, and will soon be the 
case with their juniors, with the clubs of more recent creation. 
As each of them admits only a limited number of members, 
the Tory clubs increase to meet the demand. While the 
Liberals have in the matter of big clubs, without counting the 
old Reform and Brooks’, now devoid of political importance, 
only the National Liberal Club and the City Liberal Club, 
the Conservatives have, besides the Carlton, which is still 
their great politico-social centre, the Junior Carlton, the City 
Carlton, the St. Stephen’s, the Constitutional, and the Junior 
Constitutional. The comparative paucity of members admis- 
sible, and the large number of candidates waiting to be elected, 


424 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





added to the nature of the social sphere from which they are 
recruited, have the natural effect of making the Tory clubs 
more exclusive, of forming stronger ties between their mem- 
bers, and of spreading their esprit de corps even beyond them. 
A man has not yet joined the club, he is still on the long list 
of candidates; but while he is waiting for election he has caught 
the tone which prevails in it, he has become imbued with the 
sentiments which animate the members, he is already a link 
in the living chain which they form in social and political 
life. The big Tory clubs in the provinces exhibit the same 
character. In the Liberal clubs this esprit de corps has never 
existed, for want of conditions to keep it alive; there were 
too many different shades of opinions and too much variety 
in the social extraction of the Liberal clubmen, so that to 
strengthen the bonds of union, to ensure the political loyalty 
of the members of the club as such, it was necessary to depend 
rather on the allurements in the way of comfort which it 
offered them, and which after all are by no means irresistible, 
as events had proved.’ Nevertheless, the Liberal clubs do 
serve, although in a much smaller degree than the Tory estab- 
lishments of the same kind, as a political cement for their 
members, by keeping up the feeling of respect for society 
which compels the individual to fall in behind his fellow- 
men, which prevents him from taking a line of his own. 


TE 


Whether they perform their part with more or less success, 
all these clubs — the Carlton, the National Liberal, with their 
provincial imitations — bring together only members of the 





1 When the divergences of opinion in the second Gladstone Ministry, be- 
tween the Radical fraction represented by Mr. Chamberlain who had just 
launched his ‘‘ unauthorized programme,” and his more moderate colleagues, 
gave rise to apprehension that they might be followed by a formal split in the 
Liberal party, a ‘‘ member of the Cabinet of great experience and sagacity ”’ 
remarked: ‘I don’t believe that there can be any break-up in the Liberal 
ranks, because of the existence of our great political clubs; a man learns to 
love his favourite club in course of time, and he will submit to anything rather 
than to exclude himself from it.’’ (‘‘The Liberal Split and Liberal Clubs.’’ 
The Speaker, 1st March, 1890.) A year had hardly passed when the Liberal 
party was torn asunder owing to the Irish Home Rule Bill of Mr. Gladstone, 
and in more than one ‘“‘ favourite club’”’ there was an exodus of dissentients. 


THIRD cHAP.]| THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 425 





upper and middle classes, and present merely an improved 
form of the reaction of society which always gave cohesion to 
the ruling classes. But these classes are henceforth, from 
1868 and 1884 onwards, but a small minority of political 
society. The reaction therefore can only be strictly local and 
the cohesion extremely partial; the great mass of the elec- 
torate remains outside. Consequently, immediately after 1868 
steps were taken to bring the new popular voters into ay 
clubs as well, and Liberal and Conservative “ working-men’s 
clubs” were started. The politicians had no need even to 
create them altogether. For ten years or so before this fate- 
ful epoch, under the inspiration of philanthropists of every 
shade of political or religious opinions, a movement had been 
in progress for organizing popular places of meeting and 
recreation of a more elevated kind than the public-houses. 
On the principle of rich men’s clubs, small folk, workmen, 
shopkeepers, employés, formed societies, with unpretending 
premises, where for a trifling subscription of a few shillings a 
year the members could spend their leisure time in reading, in 
conversation, in games, and obtain refreshments, or even italy: 
Soon this movement received a powerful impulse in conse- 
quence of the establishment (in 1862) of a “ Union of Work- 
ing-men’s Clubs and Institutes,” in which persons belonging 
to the cultivated classes took the lead. Promoting and assist- 
ing in the formation of new clubs on the basis described, the 
Union had two great objects in view, — ke these clubs 
not only a factor of moral elevation, but an educational instrn- 
ment, spreading enlightenment among the masses, and on the 


other utilize them for drawing all ses nearer to 
each other, tor levelling the barriers which divided English 
society. On a somewhat modest scale, it is true, these inten- 
tions were realized in more than one club, the promoters of 
which succeeded in organizing lending libraries, meetings for 
discussion, French, drawing, and music classes, in which 
“oentlemen,” t.e. persons belonging to the cultivated and 
wealthy ranks of society, made not only pecuniary but per- 
sonal sacrifices by coming down to the clubs to take part in 
the conversation, the reading, and even in the games of the 
labour members. The better class of working-men grasped 
the advantages of the clubs at once, but the great mass of the 






































426 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





people did not like giving up the public-houses, the result of 
which was that most of the working-men’s clubs had not a 
sufficient number of members to make both ends meet and to 
dispense with the pecuniary assistance of gentlemen philan- 
thropists. Nevertheless the movement made progress, and 
in a few years several hundred of clubs affiliated to the Union 
were scattered over the Kingdom, always remaining perfectly 
neutral from a political and religious standpoint. Referring 
to this point, one of the patrons of the Union, Lord Carnarvon, 
the eminent Minister of the Derby and Disraeli Cabinets (who 
was on the Council of the Union with genuine Whigs, like 
Lord Brougham, and advanced Radicals), remarked at one of 
the annual meetings of the Union: “ How far should politics 
enter into the life of these societies? If they meant party 
politics — politics which would give a colour and complexion 
to the clubs —I should hold that to be a great misfortune. If 
this politics were so to come in that clubs should be composed 
of one side or the other — Conservative or Liberal —I should 
hold that that was ruin to their system. But if by politics 
they meant only to the extent that their discussion was in 
common with political and social questions, that was differ- 
ent.”' The “great misfortune” apprehended by Lord Car- 
narvon was already lying in wait for the working-men’s clubs, 
and before long, at the instigation of the politicians, most of 
these clubs hoisted party colours. It is hardly necessary to 
say that this transformation dealt a heavy blow at the original 
conception of working-men’s clubs. Instead of serving the 
moral and intellectual welfare of the masses, promoted in an 
absolutely disinterested spirit, they became party machines. 
The parties seized on them to secure and extend their electoral 
connection. Everybody who might have been attracted into a 
club labelled Liberal or Conservative was to become their vas- 
sal from the fact of his habitually frequenting an exclusively 
Liberal or Conservative circle which had been made pleasant 
forhim. <A competition arose between the parties as to which 
should start the greater number of institutions of the kind. 
These efforts have attained extraordinary proportions during 
the twelve years extending from 1883-1884. 


1 Sixth annual meeting of the Working-men’s Clubs and Institutes Union. 


THIRD CHAP. | THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 42 


~~ 





IV 
AlLovar the county, even in the villages, there are now 





vs clubs. In the large towns there are 
dozens of them. Their individual importance varies a good 
deal; some —that is, in London, and even in a few provincial 
towns — do credit to the spirit of co-operation displayed by 
English workmen; they are housed in their own premises, 
built for the purpose, and have as many as 1500 or 1800 mem- 
bers; the others hire a whole house, or simply two or three 
rooms, and have a hundred or even fifty on their list. Nor is 
the social standard of the members absolutely uniform; some 
are mostly filled by small middle-class people, shopkeepers, 
clerks, whereas the very great majority of popular clubs are 
really recruited from the class of manual labourers. A dis- 
tinction of greater importance for the inner life of the clubs 
arises according as they do or do not allow the consumption 
of alcoholic drinks. In the vast majority of clubs, including 
nearly all the Conservative ones, wine and spirits can be 
obtained with even greater facility than in the public-houses, 
which are closed for part of Sunday and after a certain hour 
in the evening, whereas the clubs remain open later, and the 
whole day on Sunday. Consequently, drinkers highly appre- 
ciate clubs, and the scenes witnessed in them are not always 
of an edifying description. The complaints of their demoral- 
izing action are numerous and very loud. It is not impossible 
that they are somewhat exaggerated, but in the main they are 
well founded. The managers of the clubs cannot even wish 
for less drinking to go on in them, for the bar is their great 
source of income. Yet there are a good many clubs in the 
country on a temperance basis which manage to get on without 
this resource. The fact is worthy of note; it is not, however, 
the rule. In the interest of the party, which is anxious to 
attract as many people as possible to the club, the subscription 
is fixed at a very low, often almost nominal, rate, and neces- 
sarily it is the bar and the games which keep the club in 
funds. The net profit from the liquors generally constitutes 
more than a third of the receipts,’ and even with that the 


1Jn the clubs of which I have examined the books, it amounted to 35 per 
cent, 40 per cent, and even, in Conservative clubs, to 50 per cent. 


428 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rurrp parr 





yearly balance-sheet of the club often shows a deficit, which 
makes it dependent on the Organizations or on rich members 
of the party, who pay the debts until they get tired of so 
doing. In addition to the full members the clubs generally 
have honorary members, leading men in the party who sub- 
scribe a guinea or two a year. Besides this, a good many 
clubs are regularly subsidized by the Associations, or even 
kept up by parliamentary candidates. It sometimes happens 
that working-men’s clubs start up all at once in a constituency, 
like mushrooms, just as they are apt to disappear suddenly 
and simultaneously after, for instance, the local M.P. retires 
into private life. Their birth and their death were due toa 
private individual. There are seasons for the outburst of 
clubs; it takes place especially after a general election and at 
its approach. The candidates who have just been beaten, or 
who are going to enter the lists, cover the constituency with 
clubs to prepare or retrieve their fortunes. The great number 
of working-men’s clubs in existence, and the facility with 
which new clubs of this kind are formed, is not due solely to 
the co-operation of the party Organizations and the candidates, 
they also multiply, thanks to the operation of the “ tied-house 
system,” of which they accept the benefits and the obligations, 
like most of the public-houses. This system consists in rich 
brewers letting the retail vendors have a certain quantity of 
beer on credit, and not demanding payment for it as long as 
the latter remain their customers. The landlords of public- 
houses are thus always tied. In granting the same terms to 
the working-men’s clubs, the brewers procure them a great 
part of their stock-in-trade, which they have all the less appre- 
hension in placing at their disposal because they count on the 
Organization of the party concerned or its rich members not 
to leave the club in the lurch. 

But the worst of all this, according to the party politicians, 
is that the members of the working-men’s clubs do not care 
an atom for politics, that they join them simply for the sake 
of the social advantages which these institutions offer them. 
When hands are wanted for the various jobs which devolve 
on the Organizations, as for instance electoral registration 
work, or the election canvass or fetching voters to the poll, the 
Association applies as a matter of right to the members of the 


THIRD CHAP. | THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 429 





clubs of the party, but the latter turn a deaf ear to the appeal; 
they prefer remaining in the bar, or in the billiard-room to 
watch the performances of the crack players. This indifference 
of the members to politics is accounted for not only by their 
crass egoism, but by a hazy feeling which they have that it is 
not so much for their good as in the interest of the party or 
of the parliamentary candidate that they are invited to join 
these institutions, and they unconsciously meet the demands 
made upon them with what is called in law eaceptio turpitudinis. 
The “earnest politicians ” who belong to the club rarely show 
their faces in it; the company is beneath them, the bulk of the 
members being taken from the lower strata of the electorate, 
and these on their side have a greater respect for the good 
billiard-player or cricketer; it is he who gives the tone to the 
club. In some clubs there are groups of “politicians,” who 
work zealously for their party; but they could have done it 
just as well without being members of the club. The political 
newspapers to be found in more or less greater number in every 
club are little read, the reading-room is never crowded. It is 
often at the further end of the building, and before getting 
there one is easily stopped in the bar or in the rooms for 
games. On more than one occasion I have happened to note 
that it was not lighted of an evening, and that it was lit up 
for the occasion, to show the room to the visitor. The pro- 
gramme of every club includes lectures, but they are thinly 
attended. In the London working-men’s clubs there are lect- 
ures every Sunday, but save in exceptional cases the lecturer 
' speaks to benches which are more than half empty. Of sev- 
eral hundreds of members, barely two or three dozen come to 
the lecture. How often does it not happen that the lecturer, 
who is generally unpaid, after a long and tiring journey in 
omnibuses and trams, or even by rail, at last lands in the club 
to which he has been invited, to find the room empty. In 
vain does the secretary rush from one apartment to another, 
from the bar to the billiard-table, from the billiard-table to 
the bagatelle-room, to entreat the members to go and hear the 
lecturer. After waiting for half an hour the latter begins his 
address before a few scattered recruits brought in by the 
unfortunate secretary, who is profuse in expressions of regret 
and apology. Formerly the lecture took place on Sunday 


430 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rurp parr 





evening and was supposed to be the principal distraction of 
the day of rest. Now it is generally moved back into the 
forenoon or the afternoon, to leave the evening free for musi- 
eal and dramatic entertainments, at which the families of the 
members, women and children, are present. In a few large 
working-men’s clubs in London classical plays are performed, 
Shakspeare, for instance, but in most of the clubs another 
kind of repertoire is in favour, that of the music-halls; “nig- 
ger melodies ” and comic songs are sung, to the great scandal 
of the Puritans, who consider it a shocking violation of the 
Sabbath. 

If in the great majority of clubs “earnest politicians ” dis- 
appear like a drop in the ocean of the indifferent, to make up 
for it there are clubs the members of which are too serious 
politicians, in which there would appear to be no other interest 
on earth but that of militant politics. These are the ultra- 
Radical clubs, somewhat few and far between in the provinces, 
but numerous in London. Of course, with a considerable sec- 
tion of their members, the interest in the bar and the billiard- 
room comes first, as is the case in every popular crowd, but 
the “politicians” are a strong contingent, and it is they who 
give the tone to the club. If the coherence of their ideas 
and their political judgment are not beyond criticism, the 
sincerity of their convictions, and in general their political 
honesty, are undeniable. The most important working-men’s 
clubs of the metropolis belong to this very category. Several 
of them have a large number of members and enjoy a real 
prosperity. This enables them, and the uncompromising ~ 
fierceness of their Radicalism enjoins on them, to hold aloof 
from the official parties, that is, from official Liberalism, for 
which they have an unbounded contempt; for all its repre- 
sentatives are, in their eyes, simple reactionaries, and hypo- 
crites into the bargain.’ Of course they do not recognize the 
Liberal Organization; they have their own, which is called the 
Metropolitan Radical Federation, and which is at daggers 
drawn with the Liberal Caucus.’ 


1 The reader will recollect that the opposition to the establishment of a 
special branch of the Caucus for the metropolis came from the Radical fed- 
erated clubs. Cf. supra, p. 311. 


THIRD CHAP. ] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 431 





Vv 
Thus t | the_working-mer’s~chrbs—ascillate between two ex- 


tremes; some are too much absorbed in politics, the others 
display -analmost absolute indifference to them. The former 
being independent of the official parties, and the latter forming 
the very great majority of these institutions, the question 
arises — What is the use of them to the parties? It consists 
above all in this, that most of the members who do not know, 
and do not care to know, anything about politics vote unhesi- 
tatingly in accordance with the hints given them by the 
“politicians” of theciub, or even by the best billiard or 
cricket players, to whom they pay a tribute of personal esteem 
and of good-fellowship in complying with their request to vote 
for the candidate of the party. Then the_clubs supply the 
party Organizations with contingents for the demonstrations, 
which have become an amusement for their members like any 
other. Another service ES the clubs are supposed to render 
is to “preserve young men” from political perdition. With 
the inexperience and innocence of their age, the latter might 
easily fall a prey to the opposite party, be seduced into voting 
with it by the example of their companions or by other influ- 
ences, whereas if enrolled at an early stage in the clubs of the 
relatives or of the political friends who lay claim to them, 
they would be withdrawn from these influences and made to 
walk in the right path. This sort of prophylactic treatment 
by means of isolation is an equally important factor in the 
policy of the middle-class political clubs, in which it is in 
still greater request for keeping the rising generation in the 
political traditions of the family. 

Altogether the services which the clubs known as working- 
men’s clubs render to the parties by no means correspond to 
the efforts and the great pecuniary sacrifices made by the 
Organizations, by the parliamentary candidates or the M.P.’s 
and other party zealots to start these establishments and keep 
them going. The persons concerned are under no illusion on 
this point, and yet they go on with the game because it 
has been begun, and because with their eagerness of players 
they wait to see what may turn up, and, tinally, because it 
would not be always prudent to throw up their hand and 






































432 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rurrp part 





make enemies of the members of the clubs, who have votes to 
give at the elections. It is only when the financial or moral 
difficulties become intolerable that they make up their minds 
to sever the connection. It is from considerations of the same 
nature that people are careful not to be outspoken with the 
clubs, not to remind them of their proper functions and their 
duty; in public nothing but compliments and flattery is 
bestowed on them. Statesmen on a visit enjoying the hos- 
pitality of the big club of the party, and receiving deputations 
from the others, lavish eulogistic epithets on them; they are 
“admirable institutions,” “beneficial,” “full of hope™in the 
future,” “a large portion of the intellectual and moral ad- 
vancement which we all feel is going on around us comes 
from the clubs.” 

Of the two historic parties, the Conservatives, who in pri- 
vate, just like their rivals, often speak of the working-men’s 
clubs in severe terms, have, perhaps, fewer reasons for con- 
sidering them as of no account, and this, of course, in no way 
from the standpoint of “intellectual and moral advancement,” 
which is not a factor in the question. As the gentlemen’s 
club in the county town frequently serves the Tories as a 
centre of organization of the party, in the same way the work- 
ing-men’s clubs supply them in a good many places with the 
regiments for their army. The local branches of their Organi- 
zation are very often represented solely by clubs, which in 
their eyes have the advantage of not requiring to the same 
extent the application of the principle of autonomy which is 
supposed to be the basis of the “ Associations,” and, above all, 
of providing by the development of “social tendencies” a 
modus operandi alike more effective and better suited to the 
traditions of the Tory party than the typical meetings of the 
Caucus. The federation of Conservative clubs, the recent 
establishment of which has been already referred to, is in- 
tended to accentuate the action of the clubs in this direction; 
it tries to form subsidiary recreation clubs, as adjuncts to 
established clubs, such as cricket and cycling clubs, and to 
bring about the “interaffiliation” of clubs, which consists in 
the member of an interaffiliated club enjoying rights of mem- 
bership in all the other interaffiliated clubs. 


THIRD CHAP. | THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 433 





VI 


Inadequate for party purposes, the clubs might be of great 
value for the formation of public opinion in general, owing to 


their character of social centres where persons representing 
ment meet on neutral ground, and where divergences of view 
show themselves in the freedom of private conversation. But 
for this beneficial exchange of opinions to take place in the 
clubs two elementary conditions are necessary,— that_there 
should be different views, a variety of shades of opinion, and 
that they should have free play. The existence of these con- 
ditions, already limited by the division into parties which lies 
at the root of political clubs, has been much impaired of late 
years. For a long time great political tolerance and a real 
breadth of views governed the selection of members, especially 
in the Liberal clubs (the Conservative clubs were inclined to 
be homogeneous by their nature) which took in the whole 
gamut of what is styled Liberal opinion, from the most timor- 
ous Whigs down to the very advanced Radicals. _ But the too 
close connection of the clubs with the official party eventually 
made them forget that a club is an organ of opinion and not 
of action, and they set up practically a rigid creed. The 
Home Rule Bill of 1886 was the starting-point for it. At the 
outset, when hostilities broke out in the Liberal ranks on 
the Irish question, the Liberal clubs proclaimed their neu- 
trality. Having been dragged for so long at the heels of the 
Organization of the party, they were soon hurried into the 
fray. In London the old clubs, the Reform and Brooks’, 
remained faithful to their traditions of tolerance, but the great 
official club of the party, the National Liberal Club, after 
having declared its neutrality, withdrew its declaration and 
threw in its lot with the particular measure which caused the 
Liberal divisions. The members of the club who belonged to 
the Liberal minority in the House of Commons would not 
consent to accept a toleration amounting only to a permission 
to take their meals or read the newspapers, and they resigned 
ina body. In the Liberal clubs of the provinces the majority 
of the party displayed still less tact, the dissentients on the 
Trish question were subjected to inquisitorial proceedings; they 
VOL. 1—2F 






































434 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp parr 





were expelled for having, for instance, consented to become 
an anti-Home Rule candidate." The Liberal Unionists with- 
drew, but their number was often too great in a good many 
provincial clubs, when they were not in a majority as at 
Birmingham, for their departure not to seriously affect the 
financial position of these establishments, and in more than 
one case they had to be wound up. A certain number of clubs 
continue to take in both sections of the party, but the old 
cordial terms no longer exist. 

The example thus set by the great clubs, the gentlemen’s 
clubs, is certainly not calculated to encourage toleration and 
independence of opinions in the working-men’s clubs, and the 
less so because, as a rule, the latter have been and are estab- 
lished for the requirements of the Organization of the party, 
or even to push a particular candidate. But even this does 
not constitute the great difficulty which the working-men’s 
clubs have in becoming a centre of enlightenment, a laboratory 
of opinion. Even supposing that the party yoke did not weigh 
heavily on the working-men’s clubs, their members, who have 
only aslight smattering of culture, would be unable to enlighten 
each other by their unassisted efforts; the club life in itself 
would be of little or no use,— several blind men do not make 
one who can see. Their eyes can be opened, their intellectual 
standard raised, and their political judgment improved only 
by the daily effective co-operation of men of a higher cultuze. 
The latter must make personal exertions, must come to the 
clubs and associate with their members, not in a spirit of con- 
descension of superiors towards inferiors, but with the kindly 
feeling and the sympathy of,the stronger for the weaker. 
Their unobtrusive presence would raise the moral tone of the 
club, their efforts would rouse the lethargic minds, contact 
with them would kindle the flame of intelligent curiosity. 
And perhaps there is no country in which this intervention of 
men of a higher culture would be accepted with greater alacrity 
and gratitude and with less class jealousy and suspicion than 
among the English working-men. Butthe maintenance of such 
relations with the working-men’s clubs presupposes infinitely 
more good-will, self-sacrifice and disinterestedness than the 


1 Cf. the article already quoted, ‘‘ The Liberal Split and Liberal Clubs.’’ 


THIRD CHAP. | THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 435 





politicians have at their disposal. In point of fact, the moral 
and intellectual welfare of the working-men’s clubs has no 
interest for them, so long as they supply voting power, party 
combatants. Except at election time they never come near 
them, nor do they show their interest in the clubs in any other 
way; they think they have done their duty by them in signing 
acheque. It is true that a good many of them, and especially 
the M.P.’s, even if they wished to maintain closer relations 
with the working-men’s clubs, would not be able to do it. 
Their “stumping” engagements, their duties as commercial 
travellers for the party, occupy almost all the time not taken 
up by their work in the House, and it would often be anything 
but a welcome request to ask them to spend one or two even- 
ings a week in the working-men’s clubs of their constituency. 
The result none the less is that the clubs, being left to them- 
selves except for party discipline, cannot be a factor of political 
culture for the masses. Like the gentlemen’s clubs, but with 
somewhat different accessories, their sole mission is to culti- 
vate party spirit in the bar and the billiard room. 





VII 
The clubs, which are the “social” counterpart_of the 
Associations, serye, like th as_a_ permanent organization 
recelying and ] a : rties. But 


outside both there is also a vast floating electoral population, 
having no connection, even of a nominal kind, with the par- 
ties, and which, moreover, does not care a fig whether it votes 
for a Tory or for a Radical. ‘To draw these wobers outof their 
indifference, as well as to rekindle the ardour of the others, 
Organizati ffer their “social tendencies” satisfacti 
te) eptional kind, just as in the preceding phase of their 
action, when they appealed _to_the intelhgence, they had 
recourse to measures of a stronger description than those 
afforded_by the routine of the ordinary meetings of wards or 
of Hundreds, which were suitable only for the initiated. 
These more heroic measures were the great meetings and 
demonstrations. In that case they had to deal with “ brainy ” 
people, and they treated them with high-sounding speeches. 
Here they are confronted by people of another kind, and 


























436 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruiep part 





instead of political meetings invitations are issued to “social 
meetings,” in which people sing, dance, eat, drink, in which 
they amuse themselves in a number of other ways, and a po- 
litical address, a bit of party claptrap, is slipped in inciden- 
tally between the acts to make it go down. Experience had 
shown the managers of the Organizations that politics pure 
and simple were powerless to draw the masses after this or 
that party, that it_was necessary to make allowances for the 


dispositions and tastes of men as they are in social life, that 


it was therefore advisable to “socialize polities.” The idea 


was that this result would be attained by a happy mixture of 


‘politics and pleasure,” offered to the inhabitants of towns as 
well as to country people. “If,” as a popular Conservative 
paper remarks in reference to the extension of this system to 
the country districts, “if we only give a little amusement to 
the rustic, the rustic will then drink in the instruction which 
we offer him. Even as in a Kindergarten, instruction and 
amusement must go hand in hand.” 

So much for the theory. As for the practice, it is of a still 
less abstract nature. It consists in giving the people fétes 
and entertainments calculated to amuse them, and consequently 
to advertise the party, or more particularly the candidate or 
member, who behaves so nicely to honest folk. That is the 
object of all the varied forms of amusement devised by the 
ingenuity of the organizers. Practice has not failed to sanc- 
tion a certain number of them which have come into general 
use. These are smoking-concerts, social evenings or conversa- 
ziones, fétes, picnics, garden-parties, tea-meetings, etc. The 
smoking-concerts, which, as their name indicates, are musical 
soirées at which smoking goes on, are particularly popular. 
Following the procedure of meetings a Chairman opens the 
evening with the gravity of the heavy father in the play by a 
short address, in which he expresses the hope that those pres- 
ent will derive as much pleasure as political edification from 
the proceedings. After which the musical part is begun, con- 
sisting generally of songs or ballads or even comic ditties. 
Between two items of the programme is inserted a short 
political speech, very short, but humorous, making the public 
laugh, and of course at the expense of the political opponents. 
The oratorical interlude is performed by the usual representa- 




















THIRD CHAP. | THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 437 





tives of political eloquence, beginning with the Members of 
the House of Commons. They speak either on the question 
of the day which is engrossing the country, or on the policy 
of the parties in general, without spoiling the effect of the 
comic song which has just expired on the lips of their artistic 
colleagues or of the ditty which will be struck up as soon as 
they have finished their political disquisitions. Thus passing 
from “two musical farces, with a political address sandwiched 
between,” to a couple of monologues of “Irish humour” with 
the same interlude, and from these to short dramatic perform- 
ances, the evening is spent to the general satisfaction, and, 
it must be supposed, to the greater welfare of the party. 

The “conversaziones ” and the “social evenings” are large 
evening parties, at which the programme often includes, 
along with the musical part and the political interludes, danc- 
ing, tableaux vivants, thought-reader’s experiences, etc., be- 
sides the handing round of refreshments, which takes place in 
all the “social” meetings, and which is not the smallest 
attraction for many people. It is even the principal and only 
one in less important gatherings from which the artistic part 
is absent. The most simple type of “social” meetings are 
the tea-meetings, where a cup of tea and bread and butter con- 
stitute the only political stimulant. Being less expensive they 
are more common, and are often held even in the wards, where 
they serve to fulfil, on a small scale, all the purposes of “social 
meetings” in general.’ In the summer-time picnics, pleasure 
parties in the country, and more or less distant excursions by 
rail or boat are organized. The Presidents of Associations, 
candidates, or other big-wigs of the party who have parks or 
large gardens, give political garden-parties in them, with a 
band, political speeches, and refreshments. To make a great 
hit a “féte” is organized, with a most varied programme of 
amusements; the ordinary attractions are reinforced by the 
performances of conjurers, acrobats, “contortionists,” clowns, 


1 An Association has recorded an opinion on the usefulness of tea-meetings 
in the following terms: ‘‘They attract the young to our ranks: they enlist 
the interest of the numerous ladies who assist (in making and pouring out the 
tea) and of those who are present at the meetings, and they help in maintain- 
ing pleasant and cordial relations between members and their constituents ”’ 
(Extract from the minute-book of a Liberal Association in the north of 
England). 


438 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES — [ruirp part 





by sports for men and women, with prizes, the whole preceded 
by a political part, after despatching which and shaking off 
the cares of State, the company indulges to its heart’s content 
in innocent pleasures. These pleasures are enhanced by the 
presence of women. In fact, the organizers welcome them most 
warmly at all the social meetings, because they attract the 
men. A water-party or a picnic with good-looking young 
women is sure of success, as are the tea-meetings at which 
they sing; each of them ensures the presence at the meeting 
of several young men,— her brothers come as in duty bound 
to applaud her, her admirers for flirtation or amusement. 
And it is all so much gain for the party, as the young men 
get into the habit of walking in the right path. For this 
reason, in many localities women are in request even for 
purely political meetings, and a portion of the room is set 
apart for them; “but,” as the managers of a caucus explained, 
“we encourage them rather to sit with the men.” The other 
great attraction of a less esthetic kind is the more than 
moderate cost of admission to these fétes and entertainments. 
If it is an excursion, even less than the price of the railway 
ticket is paid; if it is a simple social meeting, “a social,” as 
it is called for short, a ticket can be bought for a few pence 
entitling the holder to refreshments worth at least double the 
amount. The difference is paid by the Association, or by the 
candidate who is nursing the constituency for the next general 
election, or again by wealthy members of the party, who are 
asked to cover the deficit for the good of the cause. Thanks 
to their generosity, it is even possible to distribute tickets to 
poor people quite gratuitously. 

Although committed out of election time, and often long 
before it, and perhaps even independently of the candidate, 
these acts of liberality none the less have in view the votes 
of the electors, and constitute de facto if not de jure, a pur- 
chase of votes in advance. The “social meetings” organized 
by the Associations have therefore not failed to attract the 
attention of the judges who try election petitions.1_~ While 
admitting that the smoking-concerts, conversaziones, social 


1JIn England it is not the House of Commons which adjudicates on the 
validity of contested elections, but the judges of the Supreme Court in accord- 
ance with the ordinary rules of judicial procedure. 


THIRD CHAP. ] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 439 





suppers, etc., organized by the Associations are not in them- 
selves necessarily illegal, the judges have laid down as a general 
proposition that they “are dangerously akin to corrupt treat- 
ing,” and that, in any event, “they tend to engender, on the 
part of those who are liable to be affected by such considera- 
tions, an expectation that they are going to get free drink, or 
practically free drink, at the expense of other people, and so 
to induce them to join these Associations, and in that way to 
join the party which these Associations are formed to pro- 
mote.” The judges came to the conclusion that the Associa- 
tions were a source of real danger in this respect. “ People 
have a right to associate together in order to persuade their 
fellow-countrymen to adopt those views of politics which they 
are persuaded are the best and most wholesome; and so long 
as in doing that they resort solely to things which are likely 
to produce an effect upon the reason of those to whom they 
are addressed, no fault whatever can be found with their 
action; it is otherwise when they endeavour to go beyond that 
and to acquire popularity for political principles of a particular 
kind by endeavouring to secure the adhesion of those voters 
who take a less strong view of political matters, by addressing 
themselves not to their reason, but to less praiseworthy 
methods, by giving them treats and entertainments for the 
purpose of inducing them to join one or other of the great 
political parties into which the country is divided.” ? 

The effect of the severe admonitions of the judges, “that 
the practices of the local Associations may be amended for 
the future,” is and will be a long time in making its appear- 
ance, for the danger of coming within the arm of the law, of 
seeing smoking-concerts and conversaziones pronounced illegal, 
is not very great (they are only “akin to corrupt treating”), 
and the election petitions are not frequent,* while the “ prac- 


1 Judgments delivered by the justices selected for the trial of election peti- 
tions (Blue Books, 1893, Controverted Elections, pp. 11, 81, 84). 

2 Tbid. 3, 81. Cf. the opinion expressed subsequently, after the general 
election of 1895, by the judges in the Lancaster and Tower Hamlets (St. 
George’s Division) election petitions, where they take a much more lenient 
view of smoking-concerts (Blue Books, 1896, Controverted Elections, Part I, 
pp. 5,6; Part II, pp. 10, 11). 

3 The cost of an election petition is too high — about £5000 on an average — 
for it to be resorted to frequently. 


440 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





tices ” referred to have become for “these local Associations ” 
an essential element of their action on the electorate. Of 
course their importance is not the same everywhere. It varies 
first of all with the latitude. In the extreme north of Eng- 
land, and especially in Scotland, the “social meetings” have 
much less success than elsewhere. The Scot is too methodical 
a being to take to the mixture of politics with amusements, and 
too unsentimental to be moved by music, dancing, or tableaux 
vivants. The variation is not less considerable with the 


political party. It is the Tories who are past masters in the: ~ 


organization of “social meetings” and in the art of making 
them attractive. The Liberals have had to learn from them; 
while giving them credit for the fact that all beginnings are 
difficult, it must be admitted that they have already made 
considerable progress. Their political relations, however, 
with the Temperance party do not always permit them to give 
their “social meetings” all the fulness that the latter have 
with their rivals; to avoid scandalizing their teetotal friends 
they are often obliged to fall back upon tea, whereas the Tories, 
who are the political allies of the publicans, would be the last 
persons to refuse their guests refreshments of a more stimu- 
lating kind. But apart from the drinks, the Tory social 
meetings hold out powerful attractions owing to the pains 
which the Conservative organizations take with them. It is, 
in fact, one of their great preoccupations. Not only do their 
regular Associations devote themselves to the work, but also, 
and above all, the innumerable branches of the Primrose 
League. Reference has already been made to the beginnings 
of this League, founded by the members of the Fourth Party 
as an engine of war of Tory democracy. Later on, in the 
chapter dealing with auxiliary party organizations, it will be 
related how the League passed out of their control and became 
an instrument, or at least an auxiliary, of the head-quarters of 
the official party, and in what its activity and its réle consist. 
Suffice it to say in the meanwhile that the League is among 
other things the great, the greatest, promoter of the “ sociali- 
zation” of politics, and that it performs its task principally 
by constantly getting up politico-social meetings, with the 
assistance of “entertainers” of the most varied kind, con- 
jurers, ventriloquists, etc. There is no end to the amusements 


THIRD CHAP. ] THE ACTION OF THE CAUCUS 441 





which it offers the public. Great, immense,‘as is the success 
of the League, it has nevertheless to be always making fresh 
efforts in the same direction; for the voter is a frivolous being, 
he soon gets tired. ‘Our great difficulty,” the representative 
of a Tory organization confided to me, “is to keep them 
amused.” 


FOURTH CHAPTER 


CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 


I 





However strongly the action of the Organizations may in- 
fluence the minds and the “social tendencies” of the voters, 
its effect cannot be complete unless the liking for the_party, 
developed in them by these efforts, centres in a concrete fashion 
on particular persons whom the Organization is anxious to get 
into Parhament—for that is its ultimate object. To bring 
about this result, the Association must obtain what is called 
a good candidate. Here, therefore, is a new factor added 
to those with which we are already acquainted. 

But what is a good candidate? In general, one may say that 
it is the man who is likely to conciliate the greatest number 
ofthe predominating influences in the locality. As we already 
have an idea from the description of the modes of action of the 
Caucus, the influences which sway the voters are manifold. 


Party feeling, loyalty to the flag, while powerless to inspire 


all of them, is at all events capable of carrying a good many 
in-each constituency. With some, more or less reasoned con- 


victions lead them to prefer one party to the other. With 
others, devotion to the party is of a sentimental order; at one 
time it is merely the outcome of atavism, a tradition inherited 
from the family; at another simply a habit which has been 
contracted of hoisting certain political colours and which has 
become an integral part of their existence. These feelings are, 
perhaps, displayed only at intervals; overlaid by the political 
apathy which seizes on the majority of the voters between one 
general election and another, they nevertheless subsist in a 
latent condition. Idea or simple feeling, flashing brightly 
forth or smouldering under the embers of the last electoral 
battle, it is a sort of religion, resembling that of the Church, 
442 
































FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 443 





with its devotees of varying fervour, from the regular church- 
goers down to those who cross the threshold of the sacred edi- 
fice only once a year, to receive the communion on the day of 
the great Christian festival. The religion of the political 
party, in like manner, brings together all its followers on the 
solemn day of the poll, to make them communicate and to 
affirm their creed in the person of the candidate. 

This quasi-spiritual need, this duty sanctioned by habit 
and decorum, makes the believers accept, for the particular 
occasion, the ministrations of the Caucus, which is, as a 
rule, ignored by the great bulk of the electorate. In fact, as 
we already know, the Association is in reality only a handful 
oO deriving their authority from a scarcely greater number 
of political co-religionists; its elective character proceeds 
solely from the sham elective procedure used_in its forma- 
tion; and its representative value is confined to the militant 
members of the party. But the Caucus has stepped forward 
as the officiating minister of the party religion, as the guar- 
dian of the feelings engraved on so many hearts, and by that 
means, although made up of usurpation and convention, it 
acquires a real and almost legitimate power. The services 
which it holds may not be much frequented in ordinary times, 
yet the public is aware that they do take place, that the di- 
vinity of the party is glorified in them, and when the time 
for prayer arrives it knows where to go and where to look for 
the depositary of the creed, the orthodox candidate. 

It follows that the first quality required in a candidate is 
that he should profess the creed of the party in all its fulness, 
and that his opinions should give complete satisfaction to the 
Caucus, which vouches for his orthodoxy. And since the lat- 
ter is, as a rule, composed of the most ardent members of 
the party, the programme which the candidate has to endorse 
represents not so much the average opinion of the constituency 
as the views of the most advanced section. In fact, the creed 
of parties no longer consisting of fixed dogmas, the candidate 
must prove his adhesion to the political creed of the day, ac- 
cording to the latest quotation, so to speak; his political con- 
victions must be “up to date.” If, on the spur of the moment, 
a programme is issued, however voluminous, like the Newcastle 
Programme, the candidate must be prepared to subscribe to it 
































444 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 








inalump. And if the Organization should think fit to add a 
few big items to it, the candidate is bound to swallow these as 
well. 





andidate tas to face the parti Sars, 
ih Aca in_profusion among the voters. One, anxious 


to put a stop to the drinking which is a curse of the country, 
wishes to prohibit the sale of spirituous liquors by law; another 
has sworn not to hold its hand until compulsory vaccination is 
abolished; a third believes that the solution of the social 
question is to be found in “the restitution of the land to the 
people”; another group of voters is mainly interested in the 
strict observance of the Sabbath Day throughout the kingdom; 
etc. The followers of these-various sects may lean towards 
either of the political parties, and profess its creed in all sin- 
cerity, but their own particular claim is none the less in their 
minds the point on which the problems of political and social 
life converge. Consequently, in constituencies where these 
sects have many adherents the good candidate will be the man 
who can give pledges and rally round him the greatest number 
of these groups or the most important of them. In other 
words, the -programme of the candidate must _be as comprehen- 

iv ssible. 

To urge the adopted programme on the voters, and to prove 
that he is up to it, the candidate requires to be a good 
form speaker; he must be fluent and copious, and quick at 
repartee. At a pinch, if he possesses all the remaining quali- 
ties in a high degree, eloquence will not be insisted on, others 
“will speak to the people for him”; the Organization will 
support his candidature with experienced orators who will 
turn a flood of talk on the constituency. 

But this is not nearly all. The electorate is not composed 
solely of believers and sectaries who can be won by profes- 
sions of faith and programmes. Perhaps they are only the 
minority. In any event, whatever their numerical importance, 
there are always thousands of voters who in choosing between 
rival candidates are influenced by considerations unconnected 
with any notion of Liberalism or Conservatism or with any 
programme whatsoever. In one place workmen vote in a body 
for their employer because he pays well, without caring a rap 





FouRTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 445 





whether he goes to the House to swell the ranks of the Tories 
or to reinforce the Liberals. In another, a rich man is voted 
for because he is rich, or because he has a reputation for gen- 
erosity, because he subscribes handsomely to charitable insti- 
tutions and signs cheques without hesitation in favour of every 
society and club which applies to him. Another large group 
is guided solely by influences springing from its religious 
claims or passions, which convert it into a single body with 
one “conscience,” one will. To carry the votes of the electors 
belonging to these categories, it is the person of the candidate 
which is all-important. The qualities which he must combine 
in this connection are not the same in all cases, they are varied 
and manifold, but all of them may be reduced to a single term 
— popularity. The candidate must be a popular man — here 
is a new condition to be fulfilled by him, which is, perhaps, 
even more important than all the preceding ones, for the tho- 
roughgoing party devotee himself is also a man swayed by less 
abstract and less general considerations. 

The first postulate of the popular candidate isis position 
of local_man, which ensures his being known to everybody. 
But often this is a drawback, or even a reason for disqualifica- 
tion. In his contact with local life he has, perchance, made 
many enemies. As employer of labour he has, it may be, 
aroused the discontent of his workmen, there has perhaps been 
a strike in his factory or his workshop, and thus his political 
prospects are spoilt beforehand, however great his political or- 
thodoxy and however considerable the services which he has 
rendered to the party. In that case a stranger would be more 
acceptable, even if he were a lawyer, on condition, of course, 
that he has an aptitude for becoming popular. With good 
means the popular candidate should unite a reputation for gen- 
erosity and for affable manners, and, in general, a sympathetic 
character or special qualities capable of impressing the ordi- 
nary voter in his favour. Among these special qualities there 
are some which one would never dream of requiring from a can- 
didate in any other country. Thus a good “athlete,” an adept 
at games, is a very good candidate; if he is a good cricketer, 
most of the cricketers in the constituency — and their name 
is legion — might find it difficult to resist the admiration with 
which he inspires them so far as not to give him their votes. 








446 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp parr 





The combative spirit, which is a mark of the race, assigns 
almost a moral excellence to fighting qualities and, from 
a deviated ethical sentiment, the deference shown to the 
crack football or cricket player is in fact rather a homage 
paid to the character of the man. It is for the same reason 
that the platform speaker carries away the audience; telling 
blows are admired and cheered, whether they are delivered 
with words or with the cricket-bat. The candidate, therefore, 
must be a good talker, not only to win those who are able to 
follow his line of argument, but also those who pay atten- 
tion only to form, without understanding, or wishing to un- 
derstand, the subject-matter. The person of the speaker, 
his pluck, is capable of silencing political considerations in 
the mind of many a voter even with a relative amount of cul- 
tivation. After all, it is only a question of degree, of more 
or less elevated esthetic feeling; what forcible language is to 
some athletic feats are to others. Duller minds are attracted 
by still less stirring qualities in the candidate, by the simple 
attribute of “good fellow,” which assumes so many forms in 
daily life, from a natural kindliness toward one and all down 
to a readiness to have a drink with everybody. 

Thus the_elements of the candidate’s popularity with the 
vaters are composed of a whole string of feelings suggested 
by_his person or flowing from his character, apart from his — 
politics It is the action of man on man which asserts it- 
self triumphantly here; living realities confront the conven- 
tions of politics, the artificial distinctions of parties. And 
the latter can win the day only by means of an alliance or a 
coalition with these live forces. It is no good defying them. 














1T once told an Englishman an electioneering story belonging to the hust- 
ings period. The candidate on the platform, a very young man, looked almost 
a youth. A wag in the crowd called out to him: ‘‘ Does your mother know 
you’re out?’ ‘* Yes,’ replied the candidate, ‘‘and on Tuesday [the day fixed 
for the poll] she will know that Iam in.”’ ‘‘I would plump for such a man,”’ 
exclaimed my interlocutor with cold-blooded determination. 

A borough in Yorkshire, which had always been represented in the House 
by a Liberal, returned a Tory a few years ago. On visiting the town some 
time after the election, I made enquiry as to the cause of this change. The 
reply was that it was partly to be accounted for by the fact that the Tory 
candidate had contested the seat at four consecutive elections; a good many 
Liberal voters are supposed to have said to themselves: he is a plucky fellow, 
he deserves to win, and to have voted for him. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 447 





A conventional factor can never make any way if it does not 
throw in its lot, were it only as a parasite or by fraud, with 
a real force. Thus we have seen the Caucus climb into power 
in the rear of that great living force called party feeling, with 
which so many members of the body politic are animated. It 
matters little that in a good many cases this feeling itself has 
a purely conventional origin. Every notion which produces 
devotion, love, hatred, strife among men, is in itself a living 
fact and a real force. By appearing before the voters, who 
are inspired by party feeling, with a candidate who is the 
mouthpiece of it, the Caucus has seen its small battalion 
forthwith transformed into an army corps. This junction of 
two forces effected on the person of the candidate not being 
sufficient, in the majority of cases, to carry the election, the 
operation is repeated over and over again; by a series of 
simultaneous coalitions, invariably centring on the person of 
the candidate, every factor capable of joining in the fight — 
influences, social passions and prejudices, interests —is en- 
listed to win the constituency. Starting from a pure conven- 
tion, the Caucus takes in blood and life at each contact with 
these realities. It selects as candidate a great factory-owner who 
employs thousands of hands; a rich brewer who has under his 
thumb all the publicans of the locality, who control their cus- 
tomers; or, on the other hand, a leader of the temperance move- 
ment, a respectable mediocrity, who is a tower of strength 
in the Nonconformist chapels, a man with a well-filled purse 
and an open hand; in a word, any one who, thanks to his per- 
sonal position, is likely to poll a great many votes, and who, in 
addition to this, of course, is ready to don the party uniform. 
The more qualifications of this kind the nominee of the Caucus 
combines, the more closely will he correspond to the ideal of 
a good candidate. 

The Associations, therefore, need all their sagacity to find 
their man; the occasion is one in which the skill of the wire- 
pullers of the Caucus is put to a particularly severe test. The 
task of selection is all the more difficult because the qualifica- 
tions of the good candidate are not only of many kinds, but vary 
a good deal from one constituency to another, according to the 
relation which exists in them between social forces and politi- 
cal forces, between the nature and the composition of the for- 


448 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





mer and the degree of intensity of the latter. Ona more level 
kind of ground, where the social influences or the particular 
groups are weak or few in number, the party Organization has 
more scope. Party feeling having, in these cases, no serious 
rivals to speak of among the living forces, it becomes the liv- 
ing force, and bears away the crowd, like the wind which lifts 
the grains of dust into space and drives them straight before 
it. Under cover of such a situation, the caucus can easily 
thrust on the constituency a politician pure and simple, a 
stranger with no local connection, a “carpet-bagger,” whose 
sole claim is the confidence with which he has managed to in- 
spire the leading members of the Organization. In places, on 
the other hand, where groups and sects, each prosecuting 
their special claims, have to be reckoned with, the ingredients 
capable of producing the good candidate must be mixed with 
skill; they may not amalgamate, or they may perhaps be 
mutually destructive. For instance, in a locality where the 
group of temperance men, who demand the prohibition of the 
sale of liquors, ‘is very numerous, a brewer, were he the best 
“ Liberal” in the world, the most generous of men, the most 
ardent of Nonconformists, will never be a good candidate for 
the Liberal party, which has long been allied with the tem- 
perance men, and the caucus which adopted him would prob- 
ably be courting a defeat. As against this, a temperance man, 
were he a Conservative to his finger-tips, is a bad candidate for 
the Conservative party, which derives its strongest support 
from the publicans. 


II 


In consequence the procedure laid down by the rules for the 
selection of the candidate, described above in the account of the 
powers of the Caucus committees, is simply a formality which 
just puts the finishing touch on the work of the wire-pullers 
—a work which has perhaps been a long time in preparation. 
But this formality accomplished by the Organization is in itself 
of great importance: it confers on the candidate an incontes- 
table superiority over all his competitors of the same party; 
he becomes in truth the anointed of the party, and the Spirit 
of the party is “upon him from that time forth.” He is “the 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 449 





adopted candidate.” Independent candidates may, of course, 
come forward, but he alone is considered the orthodox candi- 
date. For this reason, therefore, and for another reason of a 
less doctrinal order, which will be mentioned later on in its 
proper place, it very rarely happens that independent parlia- 
mentary candidatures arise in the ranks of the party, in oppo- 
sition to that which has been adopted by the caucus; and their 
success is still more rare. The prestige bestowed on the parlia- 
mentary candidate through the investiture given him by the cau- 
cus is one of the most striking manifestations of the influence 
which this factor, bred of cqnventions, manages to acquire in 
taking on itself the representation of the party in the locality. 
When grappling with the living forces of society, we have seen 
it bow before them and come to terms with them; here the for- 
mal forces have their revenge. It is their second triumph; 
their first was to impose on the candidate the programme of 
the Organization, which reflects only the views of a small 
group of militant politicians; in that case, however, they were 
dealing with an individual made of a special kind of clay, 
which is only too ready to be moulded, whereas the formal 
proclamation of the candidate of the party impresses the im- 
aginations of thousands and places their wills under restraint. 

Even the sitting member would not stand again if the cau- 
cus were to start another candidate in opposition to him. His 
position with regard to his party would somewhat resemble 
that of an excommunicated sovereign in the Middle Ages, 
whose subjects, so devoted to him the day before, are released 
from their loyalty to him. In practice, things rarely get so 
far as this. As a general rule, the sitting member is eo tpso 
the candidate of the Association for the next election; it 
recognizes his vested rights; even if he has proved his utter 
incompetence in the House or on the platform, he is not offered 
the affront of a notice to quit, unless his party orthodoxy is 
called in question. Qn this point there is no compromise. In 
the case of serious differences of opinion arising between the 
Association and the member, he himself gives up seeking re- 
election, if he does not wish to break with the party. If he 
were to appeal to the constituency, he would no doubt be in 
a better predicament than an independent candidate who had 
not been a member, but he would be very unlikely to obtain a 

VOL. I—26 


450 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [tuirp part 





majority again; at the most he would succeed in bringing in 
the candidate of the rival party, which would be the lucky 
third thief in the fable; in any event, he would be the cause 
of a spht in the party, and party morality knows no more 
odious crime than this. The Caucus trades precisely on these 
feelings to ensure the monopoly of its candidate; it relies on 
the reprobation with which fomenters of schisms are viewed 
by the general body of believers, and on the fear that the divi- 
sions in the party caused by them may benefit the candidate of 
the opposite party, which presents aunited front. This being so, 
the announcement of the candidafe adopted by the Caucus puts 
him, as it were, in possession, and has the immediate effect of 
discouraging possible competitors, of nipping their candidat- 
ures in the bud. To stop them more effectively, the Organiza- 
tion generally selects its candidate a good long time before 
the election, sometimes several years beforehand. This pre- 
caution offers certain other advantages besides: it enables the 
Organization to connect its propagandist action with the name 
of the candidate at an early stage, and gives the latter time 
to prepare his candidature. The Association itself profits by 
it as well; as it does not receive many subscriptions, and is 
always hard up, it cannot exist without subsidies from rich 
political friends. The candidate is marked out as the princi- 
pal support of the Association, and the sooner it finds one, 
and in easy circumstances, the sooner will it get out of its 
financial difficulties. The gifts which the candidate makes 
to the Association sometimes run into respectable figures.? 
When returned to Parliament, he continues his donations, 
because he means to stand again.” If he decides not to seek 
re-election, the Association feels the effect of it at once; the 
member, who was erewhile so demonstrative, begins to treat 
it with marked coolness, and it is bound to find a successor 
to him, not only for the seat in the House, but also for the 
donations which he was in the habit of making it. The anxiety 
about ways and means sometimes makes the Association act 
with undue haste and adopt a candidate who is, perhaps, not 


1A good many candidates spend from £400 to £600 a year. The average 
amount of this expenditure might be fixed at £250 a year. 

2 There are, however, candidates and members who do not subscribe any- 
thing to the funds of their respective Associations. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 451 





the best available; the reason is that the stomach cries cup- 
board, and that somebody must be found with all speed to 
administer nourishment, or “keep the Association going,” as 
is said in the political slang of the day. 

The choice of the local candidate by the wire-pullers is 
arrived at, to a certain extent, by a process of natural selec- 
tion. Often it falls on the President of the Association him- 
self; for, as we are already aware, he has been placed in this 
position precisely for his qualities of “popularity,” which 
make a good candidate. If it is necessary to have recourse to 
outsiders, the task is more laborious, unless the head mana- 
gers in London recommend a candidate, and a strong one too, 
who is accepted at once. But if the Association has to find the 
man by its own efforts, it looks round and feels its way. It 
is not uncommon for it to open a sort of competition, applying 
to one person after another, getting them to state their politi- 
eal views, and coming to a decision after having inspected 
them all in succession. First of all, the wire-pullers examine 
them. Then the candidates for a seat in Parliament are 
invited to speak before the “ Hundreds,” and often at a public 
meeting into the bargain. The impression which they make 
on the audience is of great weight for the future of their can- 
didatures; they undergo an ordeal similar to that of the tenor 
at trial performances on the provincial stage. The success 
obtained by the candidate at these rehearsals is the beginning 
of the popularity which he has to win. Even the candidate of 
local origin, who is well known already, has to give his mind to 
it; all the more is he bound to do so if he is a stranger to the 
locality, and this is the case with a large number of candi- 
dates, both in the boroughs and in the county constituen- 
cies. In fact, of the total of electoral Divisions, more than 
50 per cent are represented by persons brought in from out- 
side. The popularity of the non-local candidate has to be 
built up from the beginning, but this is not a very difficult 
matter, if, in addition to the aid of the caucus, he has a little 
tact and a good deal of money. Guided by the advice of the 
wire-pullers, the imported candidate will employ both to ad- 
vantage; he will gain adherents by his engaging manners and 
by his munificence. 

The interval, often of long duration, between the announce- 


452 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES _ [rurrp part 





ment of the candidature and the election is actively spent in 
doing this. The sitting member’s term has, perhaps, a 
good long time to run, but the “adopted candidate” assumes 
from that moment the part of the Lord’s anointed. He 
attends all the important gatherings, from religious or 
charitable meetings to outdoor shows at which performing 
dogs are exhibited. He tries to connect himself with all 
the events which interest the local population, down to the 
changes of the seasons almost. He “identities himself with 
local institutions ” by subscribing to them, by accepting the 
title of honorary member of this or that society, of honorary 
president of this or that club, of honorary vice-president of 
this or that association. In order not to do things by halves, 
a good many candidates even belong to some of the numerous 
benefit societies with the picturesque titles of “ Ancient Shep- 
herds,” “ Hearts of Oak,” “Odd Fellows,” “ Druids,” ete., all 
the members of which call each other brothers, and meet to 
enjoy fraternal feasts. Generally, the candidate is obliged to 
carry his “identification with local institutions ” much farther 
than he likes. As soon as he takes this title he is beset on 
all sides with demands for money; not an “institution” but 
what requests his assistance for its “‘ work”; churches, chapels, 
hospitals, asylums, clubs, musical societies, societies for sport, 
for all kinds of amusement, for every description of edifica- 
tion. Every group of individuals who take it into their heads 
to assume a collective title of some kind or other, to organize 
themselves, even for the most fanciful of objects, tries to screw 
a subscription out of him, by hinting that they represent 
influential electors, people who have a vote. It is nothing less 
than a regular blackmail levied on the candidate, who would 
deserve sincere pity if he had not laid himself open to it be- 
forehand. He is bound to submit to it in order not to make 
enemies, and to increase the number of his adherents. Be- 
sides this, he works the constituency, in concert with the 
Association, on the approved methods, by means of speeches, 
lectures, and “social” gatherings. He gives political garden- 
parties, at homes, he takes the chair at tea-meetings, he pays 
visits to the workingmen’s clubs, he attends the ward meet- 
ings, and speaks at them, as well as at the large public meet- 
ings organized by the Association. In the rural constituencies 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 458 





the task is a still more arduous one, if only on account of the 
way in which the voters are scattered over the country; the 
county Divisions, in fact, are composed of fifty, sixty, or even 
a hundred parishes. An active candidate visits them all, and, 
perhaps, more than once, and he does not confine himself to 
speaking at the evening meetings held in them; he goes from 
house to house, from cottage to cottage, to see the inhabitants 
individually, and to invite them in person to the meeting 
which he proposes to address. 


Iil 


Thus, if time allows, if the election does not come unawares, 
— owing to an unexpected dissolution or to a vacancy occurring 
during the term of the Parliament,— the ground for the coming 
election is prepared beforehand by the action of the Association 
and of the candidate. But in striving to create a current of 
opinion in their favour, they acted — however divided and dif- 
ferentiated the efforts may have been—on groups of voters, 
on masses. When election time comes at the close of which 
the voters are to record their votes, one by one, on the polling- 
day, the aspect of the political stage changes; instead of 
groups, of masses, it is the individual voter who becomes the 
protagonist. At the first blush, perhaps, the distinction will 
seem purely logical and not to admit of practical consequences; 
for are not the groups composed of individuals, and does not 
action on the one involve action on the other? It is not 
always so in reality. The inference which each one of the 
voters is intended to draw on his own account from the 
demonstration of the candidate’s claims made to them in a 
body, often turns out to be beyond his moral and intellectual 
grasp. In that case the proof has to be presented in a still 
more concrete form, the quality of good candidate has to be 
brought home to each voter individually. Thus the Organiza- 
tion is confronted with the necessity of recapturing the voter, 
singly, of catechizing and exhorting him in private. This 
applies also to those who have never been reached at all by any 
of the forms of the propaganda set in motion by the Organiza- 
tion: they have not come to it, and it goes to them, to each 
one of them. At the decisive moment of the vote it knocks at 
every door to recommend its candidate. 


454 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES — [ruirp part 





These practices of the Caucus no doubt bring distinct recol- 
lections to the reader’s mind; he has recognized in them the 
electoral canvass of bygone days, that instrument of the old 
order of things which was the most perfect mirror of it, and 
even more, its living soul. Having stepped in with the 
pretension of substituting the efficacy of principles for the 
baneful tyranny of social influences, the Caucus finds itself 
obliged once more to supplement the inadequacy of the former 
by the latter, and to resort, in this instance, to the action of 
man on man in its least dignified form. In fact, without the 
canvass the aspect of the electoral battlefields would be radi- 
cally changed, a very large section of the electorate would not 
put in an appearance, and the political parties would lose many 
of their contingents. The most optimistic calculations put 
the number of electors likely to vote more or less spontaneously 
at 50 per cent. The proportion should perhaps be reduced to 
40 or even 35 per cent to be nearer the truth. 

Having lost none of its importance from the standpoint of 
the political parties, the operation of the canvass has become 
far more complicatzd. The extension of the suffrage effected 
during the last thirty years has increased the number of voters, 
that is to say, the number of persons who have to be hunted 
up; instead of 1,200,000 citizens who possessed the right of 
voting in Great Britain before 1867, there are now (in 1895) 
nearly 5,600,000. Again, owing to the differentiation of opinion 
and of social groups, the motives and influences capable of act- 
ing on the voters have multiplied in proportion. The argu- 
mentum ad hominem, with which the canvasser operates, has 
consequently to assume a variety of shapes unknown in former 
days. Besides, the parties have not at their disposal the old 
body of canvassers, which included, along with the friends of 
the candidate, paid agents. The law enacted in 1883 against 
corrupt and illegal practices at elections prohibited the em- 
ployment of paid canvassers, for this was one of the devices for 
disguising the purchase of votes; it was customary to engage, 
ostensibly as canvassers, a number of voters ready to sell 
themselves, so-called “doubtful” voters who hesitated between 
the rival candidates, or else persons who, through the influence 
which they wielded over their relations and their friends, were 
able to secure a certain number of votes. ‘Thus the canvassers 


FOURTH CHAP.]| CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 455 





must now be at once voluntary workers, numerous enough to 
cope with the large number of voters, and with as strong a 
hold as possible on all the varied groups of which the elector- 
ate is made up. 

Being an elective body of numerous and unpaid members, 
the caucus is placed in a position to meet most of these 
new exigencies, to provide the staff suited for the canvass, 
in spite of the restrictions laid down by the Act of 1883. 
The members of the “ Hundreds” and of their committees al- 
most all turn into canvassers during election time. It is, in 
fact, the principal service which the Organization expects from 
its members, especially from those who do not lend it their 
name or their financial support. If payment of a subscription 
is not insisted on in the Associations, as we have seen, it is for 
the very reason that the non-paying members are supposed to 
give their work in place of it, to become workers of the Organi- 
zation. They appear on the scene in this capacity on the 
occasion of the electoral registration canvass; but there the 
business is more of a mechanical kind, and may be en- 
trusted, without infringing the law, to paid agents; in any 
event, it does not require a large staff. The real part played 
by the “workers” begins with the election canvass. Witha 
view to this important and delicate “work,” the wire-pullers, 
who arrange the composition of the “ Hundreds” and of their 
committees beforehand, try to get experts into them. How- 
ever, unselfish devotion does not supply the caucuses with 
all the assistance they need, and they think themselves 
bound to employ, in spite of the law, a good many paid can- 
vassers, in the strictest secrecy of course. The importance of 
a more or less numerous body of canvassers is twofold: they 
bring to the caucus not only their “ work,” but also the connec- 
tions which they possess in their respective spheres. Foremen 
of factories or workshops; active members of Trade Unions 
or other working-men’s societies; followers of religious com- 
munities; representatives of associations for instruction or 
edification, such as Bible classes (for adults) or Young Men’s 
Christian Associations, and other organizations of various 
kinds, bringing together a certain number of persons for some 
purpose or other; they are introduced, on the initiative of the 
wire-pullers, into the committees of the Association. Indebted 


456 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES — [ruirp eart 





for this distinction to the clever manceuvres of the managers of 
the caucus, and in no way to the suffrages of the masses who, 
as the reader knows, hold aloof, they none the less form, poten- 
tially, living links which connect the Organization with the 
various groups of the population to which they belong in their 
private capacity. The moment of the canvass (which, for some 
of these members of the caucus, is the beginning of the effec- 
tive exercise of the authority supposed to be delegated to them) 
makes the power pass into action. Coming out as party can- 
vassers, they deal with persons to whom they are no strangers, 
and who, perhaps, are in the habit of following them. At any 
rate, the Organization does its best to match the canvassers 
and the canvassed in this way. 

A reconnoissance of the ground is made long before the 
election, during the annual registration canvass in which the 
politics of the voter are taken down as well as the details 
required for the revision of the register. With the help 
of the information thus obtained, the electoral canvass is 
started on the registration method. That is to say, each 
ward of the borough? is divided into small blocks made over 
to canvassers who, furnished with canvass books containing 
the electoral record of the locality, call on every one, without 
distinction of party, on this occasion with the sole and formal 
mission of obtaining a promise of the vote or, at all events, 
a flat refusal. The nature and the extent of the negotiations 
are endlessly varied. Sometimes they are limited to a simple 
exchange of a question and an answer, which the canvasser 
has only to make a note of, especially if it is favourable. At 
other times it is a long conversation, in which the canvasser 
has to display all his persuasive power or personal charm. If 
the voter has any scruples about the programme or the person 
of the candidate, it is the canvasser’s business to overcome 
them, to prove that the candidate is the best of all possible 
ones, and that his programme is excellent in every respect. 
In case of partial differences, the canvasser dwells on the 
importance of the points on which the voter and the candidate 
are agreed and the comparative insignificance of the remain- 
ing ones. If the canvasser does not succeed in obtaining the 


1JIn the country districts a systematic and formal canvass is less necessary, 
the sentiments of the voters are better known. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 457 





voter’s adhesion, he asks him, at all events, to remain neutral, 
to abstain from voting. The voter full of certain aspirations, 
absorbed in special claims, is made to believe that the candi- 
date will be the best mouthpiece and the best champion of 
them; the canvasser gives pledges in his name, is lavish of 
promises in his behalf. At the same time, he makes no scruple 
of abusing the rival candidate. The charges, true or false, 
reflecting on the latter’s publi¢é or private life, often due to 
the fertile imagination of the wire-pullers, find an obliging 
retailer and an authoritative commentator in the canvasser. 
If the voter claimed by the party shows a tendency towards 
independence, the canvasser recalls him to the right path 
by bringing before his eyes the dangerous incline on which 
he is venturing, and perhaps, also, the fate of backslider 
and renegade which awaits him. If the voter is accessible 
only to considerations of a less abstract kind, it is again the 
canvasser’s business to find the arguments suited to the 
occasion. 

Thus, according to the degree of intelligence and morality 
of the voter, and the level of his own moral standard, the 
canvasser in turn argues, persuades, insinuates, promises, 
intimidates, or even goes farther. He does not always succeed 
at the first attempt. The voters styled doubtful in political 
slang, that is to say, those who have no party preferences or 
who have not given any positive pledge for or against, are 
canvassed several times over by different people. Sometimes 
even before the local canvasser goes his rounds the “ doubtful” 
ones are put on one side and are reserved for persons who have 
influence overthem. At the general meeting of the canvassers 
a personal appeal is made as to who shall canvass this man 
and who take charge of that. If those who have accepted the 
mission do not succeed in extorting the required promise, fresh 
canvassers return to the charge. It sometimes happens that 
a dozen visits are paid in this way to a single voter. In places 
where the canvass is well managed, no voter is left unvisited, 
even if he has given a formal promise at the start. If only 
for checking purposes, the Association repeats the canvass 
from house to house. Sometimes it does not stop at this 
check-canvass, but resorts to a cross-canvass ostensibly made 
on behalf of the rival candidate, For instance, a canvasser of 


458 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp parr 





the Tory Association appears as envoy of the Liberal Organiza- 
tion and asks for votes for the Liberal candidate; he notes the 
refusals with pleasure, and discovers among the consenting 
ones those who had promised the Tory canvasser to vote for 
the Tory while intending really to support his opponent. In 
the boroughs where every one knows each other, a cross-canvass 
is almost impossible, but in the country constituencies, made 
up of a good many scattered localities, it can be carried out 
with impunity. An element of uncertainty no doubt always 
attaches to the best-conducted and best-checked canvass: one 
is never sure that the promises made will be kept, if only by 
reason of the Ballot, the secret voting introduced in 1872, 
under cover of which the voter runs no risk of being convicted 
of breaking his word. But if the people of the Organization 
know their business, they can calculate the loss beforehand 
with almost mathematical accuracy. If in a constituency of 
ten to twelve thousand voters they cannot predict the exact 
result to within 150-250 votes, the Organization is considered 
very inefficient. 

Still, the expected result will be obtained on one condition 
only: that of not leaving the voters to themselves on the 
polling-day. A very large number of electors would vote 
straight when once they are inside the polling-booths, but if 
left to themselves they would not take the trouble to move, 
either from carelessness, or owing to infirmities or advanced 
age, or to save themselves further fatigue after a hard day’s 
work. To ensure their presence at the poll, the workers of 
both caucuses fetch them in earriages and take them there 
bodily. This operation completes the work of the canvass 
after having been carefully prepared by it. Each canvasser 
in the course of his visits makes a note of the voters whose 
spontaneousness cannot be relied on, takes down the time at 
which the particular voter is free and the place where he is 
to be found, the workshop or the factory, the tavern or the 
public-house, or his own home. Those who have been left to 
their own zeal are also made to feel the spur of the workers at 
the decisive moment of the vote, to wit, those who are some- 
what tardy in going to vote.. These laggards are discovered 
by the following method: on the eve of the polling-day the 
Organization sends each voter a card to obligingly inform him 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 459 








of his number on the electoral list. At the door of the poll- 
ing-place stand agents of the Organizations, who ask each voter 
as he leaves the room, after having voted, to state his number 
or even to hand over his card. The latter complies, and often 
delivers his card to the agent wearing the colours of his party 
before the assembled crowd. ‘The numbers which have come 
out are communicated at very short intervals to the local 
branches of the Association established, for the day, in each 
voting section (committee-rooms). There the names of those 
who have promised their vote, but have not voted, are picked 
out as the numbers are brought in, and they are fetched with 
all speed. 

The principal result of this very laborious operation of the 
canvass, completed by the transport of the voters to the poll, 
is to secure for the party the voters without definite political 
opinions. Real conversions from one political opinion to 
another are anything but numerous, — the proportion of prose- 
lytes is, in fact, very slight; in certain places it is estimated 
at one per cent only, exclusive of the, so to speak, profes- 
sional proselytes, who always vote against the Government, 
whatever its political complexion may be. Among these are 
the small struggling tradesmen, for instance, who hope for 
better times under a new government. If it is the Tories 
who are trying to dislodge the government of the day, 
they vote against it with enthusiasm from the widely held 
belief that trade always flourishes under a Tory government, 
although they are unable to explain this mystery of nature. 
But the presence of the Tories in power does not prevent the 
majority of this category of voters from pinning their faith on 
the advent of a Liberal government. Other electors vote 
sometimes for the one, sometimes for the other party, from a 
superior feeling of distributive justice, in order to “give them 
a chance.” Without neglecting these groups, who, however, 
are not numerous, the caucuses act mainly on the floating mass 
of voters who inhabit the confines of the regular parties and 
who vote on no system — to-day with the one and the next time 
with the other. In the electoral duel the main point is to 
know which of the two rival caucuses will be the first to lay 
its hand on the voters of this description, or, rather, which 
will enlist the greatest possible quantity of them; for it is these 


460 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [txirp part 





voters who, by their number, decide the issue of the electoral 
battles. And it is only by the canvass that they can be got 
at; by it alone can the forces which they represent be mobil- 
ized. From this point of view the canvass is more important 
than the platform and the other modes of action, and in the 
contests of the rival candidates the chances of success are to be 
found rather on the side of the man who has a highly perfected 
canvassing machinery to back him; it can often obtain the 
victory for a candidate who is personally little known and a 
poor speaker over a candidate who is a man of mark, a good 
platform orator, a pillar of the party, etc. It is in this sense 
that “everything depends on organization,” that “ organization 
is everything.” 

This exceptional part played by the canvass and the “ organi- 
zation ” work which prepares and completes it makes it a sort 
of keystone of the electoral edifice; everything is connected 
with it, everything hangs on it, everything derives its value and 
its practical object from it. Association, candidates, workers, 
the position of all is defined by the canvass. . The Associa- 
tion is important because it alone, thanks to its permanent 
cadres, which include all the zeal, ardour, party fanaticism, 
and political dexterity that exist in the locality, can provide 
the regiment of canvassers. It is by their number and not by 
that of the adherents of an Association that the latter’s power 
is measured. An Association with five thousand members and 
fifty canvassers is of less value than an Association of five 
hundred canvassers with no other adherents on its list. The 
more or less considerable number of canvassers may decide 
the fate of the electoral battle not only in their own constitu- 
ency, but in the neighbouring ones if they come to their assist- 
ance. It, therefore, not unfrequently happens that an attempt 
is made to lock up the canvassers of the rival party, to “ keep 
them at home” by starting a sham fight when there is no 
chance of success for the party which resorts to this stratagem 
and consequently no good reason for contesting the constitu- 
ency. For the candidate, the possibility or impossibility of 
using the corps of canvassers settles the fate of his candidature 
beforehand, and herein lies the second reason (along with the 
fact that the candidate adopted by the caucus is alone supposed 
to represent the orthodoxy of the party), the reason of a less 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 461 





doctrinal order alluded to above, which prevents an indepen- 
dent candidate from having any chance of success: if he were 
to come forward in opposition to the nominee of the caucus, 
he would not get any canvassers outside his personal friends, 
all of them being already engaged, swept up by the caucuses © 
of one party or the other. Even if the independent candidate 
managed to raise a battalion of his own, they would only be 
raw recruits facing an army of veterans. 

This being the case the canvass confers, as a matter of right, 
peculiar claims on those who conduct it, especially on the 
“workers” who contribute their gratuitous services to the 
Organization. Being only too well aware of the importance 
of their part, these men claim an exceptional position in the 
moral hierarchy of the Organization, especially the working- 
men members of the caucus who compose the largest con- 
tingent of “workers.” They refuse to concede this title to 
the big-wigs of the Association who take no part in the can- 
vass, and, considering them as nonentities, call them, con- 
temptuously, “ornamental members” or “ House of Lords.” 
This feeling is all the more readily accounted for because the 
task of canvassing is, in fact, often a highly disagreeable one. 
The canvasser is obliged to visit each of the voters assigned 
to him in their homes. Shopkeeper or workman, he can do it 
only of an evening, when he would prefer to rest after his day’s 
labour. He has to go, maybe, into remote parts of the town, to 
wander about there in the darkness witha lantern. In this or 
that house there are perhaps big dogs ready to spring on the 
unexpected visitor. Their master does not always give him a 
better reception. The voter whom he comes to lecture does 
not care a fig for politics and insists on being let alone. Some- 
times, on the other hand, the canvasser drops on a man who 
knows how to talk politics, and who, from a liking for the 
subject or simply to amuse himself, starts a discussion with 
him from which the emissary of the caucus retires, perhaps, 
defeated. Sometimes he has to put up with worse insults: he 
is snubbed, or turned into ridicule. These extreme cases, 
however, are not required to place the canvasser begging for 
votes too often in a humiliating predicament for a man 
conscious of his dignity, especially when it is borne in mind ~ 
that over and over again he has to deal with people who are 


462 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rxirp Part 





at the opposite pole to respectability. A good many persons, 
therefore, refuse to belong to the caucus in order not to have 
to canvass the “residuum.” Nevertheless, in a certain number 
of places the principal dignitaries of the Association, begin- 
ning with the most respectable ones, set an example of duty; 
they canvass in person and even enlist their wives and their 
daughters, who devote themselves to the good cause by going 
from house to house with their sweetest smile to ask for votes. 
The consciousness of having discharged a great duty is not 
the only reward of the canvasser. Apart from those who, as the 
reader already knows, are paid in money, the bulk of the other 
canvassers are not swayed either by considerations of a senti- 
mental order. The most important among the members of the 
caucus who “work,” establish a claim to be brought on the 
Town Council by the Organization to which they have done 
good service, or even to be recommended for the honorary 
position of Magistrate. For a good many others the title of 
“worker” serves as a testimonial for getting one of the numer- 
ous small subordinate posts at the disposal of the municipali- 
ties in places where the party in question controls the Town 
Council. The small fry find their remuneration in the refresh- 
ments to which the canvassers are treated during election time 
on canvassing nights when they come in from their rounds. 

If the party Organizations achieve a signal success with the 
canvass and if their most active members get some profit out 
of it for themselves, it is impossible to say as much of the 
electorate and of political manners in general. The voters 
are in many respects victims of the system of the canvass. 
In the first place, it is a source of great personal annoyance to 
them. As soon as election time begins, the voter becomes 
the prey of canvassers belonging to all the parties, of every 
condition and sex. The rule expressed by the saying “my 
house is my castle” is practically suspended during the 
whole duration of the canvass. There is not an hour in the 
daytime or in the evening when the voter is safe from the can- 
vasser; the luckless possessor of a vote may be at dinner or 
on the point of going to bed, it is all the same to the worker 
of the Association. Just as the village peddler has all his 
travelling stock displayed on the table when he has barely 
crossed the threshold of the house, so the canvasser, without 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 463 





losing a moment, lays hold of his man and retails his claptrap 
to him. It would be no use following the example of a voter 
in a metropolitan borough in whose window I have seen a 
placard with “No canvasser need apply”; the canvasser is a 
tenacious creature who is not to be got rid of so easily. 
Interfered with in the proprieties of their private life, the 
voters are injured far more seriously by the practices of the 
canvass in their moral existence, in their capacity of men and 
of citizens. The canvass is, in fact, a systematic attack on 
their dignity and their integrity. Degrading himself, drain- 
ing, at times, the cup of humiliation to the dregs, the can- 
vasser degrades those before whom he lowers himself. He 
strips them of the moral defence with which the Legislature 
has invested them. By asking voters to give pledges in favour 
of this or that candidate, the law on secret voting is made a 
dead letter. Won after a long and arduous struggle, the 
Ballot was intended to protect, in the political sphere, the in- 
dividual conscience against interested and corrupting attempts. 
The canvass erects them intoasystem. To extort the promise 
from the voters, the canvasser rarely appeals to their reason, 
whatever the official theory of the canvass may say, which 
represents the canvasser as a sort of travelling professor of 
political science, who brings it within everybody’s reach by 
going from house to house to enlighten the civic faith of the 
voters. In certain cases this may be true, though in an 
entirely relative sense: when he is confronted by an open- 
minded voter who wants to be convinced, the canvasser makes 
some display of reasoning, and does vouchsafe a certain amount 
of political argument and information if he has any. But in 
the vast majority of cases, he addresses himself, not to the 
intelligence of the voters, but to their ignorance, to their 
credulity; he appeals td their least elevated and most easily 
roused feelings, such as vanity and self-love, which are worked 
on by low flattery, vulgar prejudices of class, of caste, of reli- 
gious sects, mean local spite, to the less reprehensible senti- 
ments of fear of the employer or foreman, of anxiety about the 
daily bread of the family, or, on the other hand, to shame- 
ful cupidity, to the base passions of personal interest. When 
the canvasser does not act as an agent of corruption himself, he 
paves the way for it; he scatters its seeds among the voters as 


464 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rarep part 





he goes along. Spreading demoralization around it, the can- 
vass ultimately strikes at the whole political life of the 
country. Stepping down into the mire of the electorate, it 
lifts out of it elements which, left to themselves, would, for 
the most part, have remained in the depths of their civic 
indifference. It almost makes them the arbiters of the na- 
tion ; for when a large number of them shift from one side 
to the other, they turn the scales in favour of this or that 
political party. 


IV 


While conducting the election campaign with the time- 
honoured canvass, which it has developed and perfected, the 
Caucus not only does not abandon the new modes of action, of 
which it is the author or at least the responsible editor, but 
brings them up to the highest possible pressure. The most 
important of these methods is the stump; worked on parallel 
lines with the canvass, they complete one another. It would 
not be using too bold a metaphor to say that when election 
time begins every constituency is inundated with platform 
eloquence. From all points of the compass flock speakers of 
both sexes, especially at bye-elections (tolerably frequent in 
England), when they can be concentrated on a single place. 
The constituency is then literally invaded by two bodies of 
combatants containing a motley crew of Members of Parlia- 
ment, “adopted candidates” of the district, secretaries and 
agents of neighbouring and distant Associations, professional 
lecturers, lady politicians, amateurs of every description. One 
and all set upon the electorate by speechifying from morning 
till night in covered enclosures, in parks or squares, in pub- 
lic places, at street-crossings, wherever and whenever a cer- 
tain number of listeners can be got together. Eloquence is 
as much lavished on a small group of twenty persons as 
on a gathering of two thousand. Every evening there are 
several simultaneous meetings in different parts of the town, so 
much so that sometimes even the best-equipped newspapers run 
short of reporters for the speeches. In this monster concert the 
rival candidates are of course meant to take the part of first 
tenor. But if they have no voice, the position is by no means 
lost, others will sing for them; there is no lack of performers. 


FouRTH cHaP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 465 





But candidates of this stamp are becoming rarer and rarer; 
they fail to get an engagement unless they are prepared to 
spend a handsome sum. Generally the candidates have a fair 
voice,—if not musical, at all events strong and shrill,— and 
they lead the stump in person with more or less maestria. 

The immense oratorical efforts exerted during the election 
campaign are intended, not so much to bring conviction home 
to the mind as to strengthen the favourably disposed will, to 
provoke a thirst for victory, and drive it to the verge of pas- 
sion, of frenzy, and to impress the crowd to the same pur- 
pose. The unceasing rattle of the torrent of words falling 
from the platform ends by plunging the more impression- 
able voter into a state of quasi-unconsciousness, in which 
he reproduces, like a hypnotized subject, all the gestures re- 
quired; his head is crammed with phrases, with tirades, with 
exhortations, with invective taken in at the meetings, and it 
is almost a physical necessity for him to vent them on every 
one who comes near him. Ina word, the meetings serve to 
turn on “enthusiasm,” which is now more than ever the main 
preoccupation of the Organizations. Small gatherings, large 
meetings, demonstrations, torchlight processions, unharness- 
ing of the horses which draw the candidate’s carriage, all is 
intended to help to “raise enthusiasm” and to spread it by 
contagion. Many voters, in fact, are carried away by these 
material feats, which give them the semblance of power, of the 
. superiority of numbers, the only one which they are capable of 
grasping. In reality the monster meetings and the demonstra- 
tions prove nothing at all; each party, aided by the experience 
of the local wire-pullers, succeeds in organizing “ most enthusi- 
astic ’ meetings, in getting “full houses.” Even the overflow 
meetings, which seem to furnish such evident proof of the 
“enthusiasm” inspired by the candidate, are often only a de- 
ception. All the places in the hall are occupied beforehand by 
adherents of the party provided with tickets by the caucus, 
and when the interrupters and rowdies of the opposite camp 
arrive, another meeting is forthwith obligingly organized 
for them, and a few speakers held in reserve are told off to 
them, who “amuse” their audience while in the other room 
the candidate and his friends can talk at their ease, inter- 
rupted only by outbursts of “indescribable enthusiasm.” The 

VOL. 1—2H 


466 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES _ [turep rart 





rival party may produce the same effect. Just as in the can- 
vass the point was which of the two parties would be the 
first to get hold of the indifferent voters, so here the whole 
question is at which of the two fountain-heads of contagion the 
latter will take a draught of “enthusiasm,” and then follow 
the fortunes of the supposed conquerors or “go for the win- 
ning horse,” as is often said in England. This turf expres- 
sion, in fact, suits the occasion better than any other. The 
campaign of meetings, etc., which precedes the voting, no doubt 
does plunge the population into a state of great excitement, 
but the emotions aroused are decidedly of a rather sporting 
character; it is not the consciousness of the public interests 
at stake which produces them with the vast majority, but the 
anxiety of the race-course. Many atime at elections I fancied 
myself more at the Derby (whereas on the Epsom Downs it 
seemed to me that the fate of the State was being decided). 
To the women and children the polling-day brings all the 
excitement of a fair. Standing in groups in the streets, with 
rosettes or ribbons of the colour of the party to which their 
husbands or their fathers belong, they shout, cheer, or hoot, 
and wave their handkerchiefs as each election carriage goes by. 
First of all comes the candidate, accompanied by his wife, driv- 
ing about the town in an open landau, proceeding from one 
committee-room to another like a general going along the 
ranks when the battle is on the point of beginning. Old and 
young make themselves hoarse with shouting hurrah, with 
giving three cheers for the candidate and another three for his 
wife. Then come the voters, who are brought up to the poll 
often in their workaday dress, the butcher or the grocer in his 
white apron, the chimney-sweep in his sooty habiliments. On 
the other hand, the horses and carriages are always made to 
look smart, being adorned with the colours of the party and 
with posters bearing final appeals couched in the tersest of 
styles: “ Vote for Smith and good wages,” “ Vote for Jones, the 
working-man’s friend,” “ Robinson and prosperity in trade for- 
ever.” The street urchins organize processions in honour of 
the candidate of their party or against his rival, putting more 
or less symbolism into the expression of their feelings.! The 


1 For instance, to show that the candidate of the opposite party, Mr. Smith, 
an outsider, is only a carpet-bagger, the boys carry an old bag, taken perhaps 


FouRTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 467 





day must be made the most of, as on the following morning 
complete calm will once more reign, and the remembrance 
even of the election will fade away. 


. 


Side by side with the canvass and the stump an important 
share is assigned to “ political advertising,” which forms the 
last link in what may be called the trilogy of electoral action. 
The political printed matter completes the canvass and the 
stump by assuming a certain aspect of both. At one time it 
is meant, like the canvass, to act on the individual voter, 
and it consists of pamphlets and leaflets known by the ge- 
neric name of political literature. At another it is addressed, 
like the stump, to the voters in a body, by means of posters. 
We are already acquainted with the nature of political lt- 
erature. The principal distribution of this class of printed 
matter is made precisely at election time; small packets of it 
are forwarded by post to each voter, and stocks are kept in the 
committee-room for supplying all comers. Care is especially 
taken to circulate leaflets, among which a place of honour is 
given to sheets made up on the spot for the occasion, and con- 
taining appeals to particular groups of voters signed by per- 
sonages known to them, manifestoes by the candidate, adorned 
perhaps with his portrait reproduced with more or less accu- 
racy and art. 

The posters in their endless variety of form and subject are 
a sort of quintessence of the election campaign, condensing 
and summing up the canvass and the stump for the least com- 
prehensive minds. Solemn rhetoric, familiar language of the 
humorous order, rows of figures, sketches of sorts, caricatures 
with appropriate explanations, are all so many forms of in- 
structing, arguing, attacking, abusing, slandering, of appeal- 
ing to reason, to passions, to prejudices, to ignorance and 
credulity, of raising hopes or fears, of setting in motion egoism 
and personal interest. The latter is generally put forward in 
its most material aspect, reduced to its monetary expression, 
or to a still more primitive one when rudimentary minds and 

‘simple characters like the rural populations have to be dealt 


out of the dust-heap, with the label ‘‘ Smith’s bag,’’ in procession about the 
streets. 


468 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES _ [ruirp parr 





with. As may be seen from the poster reproduced below,? the 
victory or the defeat of the candidate is presented to them as a 
question of more or less bacon in the household. 


a 


v 


Does the appeal addressed to the voters’ own interest dangle 
before them only the indirect advantages which are to accrue 
to them as citizens, as an ultimate consequence of their vote; 
or does it also include offers of direct and immediate personal 
gratification? In a word, is corruption in the legal sense of 
the term resorted to in the election campaigns managed by the 
caucuses? In the account given of their action some passing 
allusions or insinuations were made with reference to this sub- 
ject. They require an explanation. 

It is well known that bribery has long been the general 
feature and the curse of English political life. In course of 
time, and owing to the modifications introduced in the compo- 
sition of the electorate, it changed its character, but it con- 


1 The following poster is from a rural constituency in Lincolnshire :— 


WORKING-MEN 
Don’t BE MISLED 


C. (name of the Conserva- DEAR SUGAR 
tive candidate) Low WAGES 
LrEss BACON 


P. (Liberal candidate) 
CHEAP ALLOTMENTS. FREE EDUCATION 
Locat MANAGEMENT OF CHARITIES 


EVERY ONE WHO THINKS THAT A WORKING-MAN 
SHOULD HAVE A 

Farr WEEK’s WAGE 
FOR A 

Farr WEEK’S WORK 
SHOULD 

VOTE FoR P. 
THr LIBERAL CANDIDATE. 


Remember, if Mr. P. is elected, he will devote himself to IMPROVING 
YOUR CONDITION and that of the country generally. There’s no selfish- 
ness about Mr. P. Be sure and put your cross against the bottom name on 
the voting paper. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 469 





tinued to exist in spite of the laws enacted for its prevention 
or repression. As far back as before 1832, in the days of the 
rotten boroughs, parliamentary seats were knocked down to 
the highest bidder, or bought from the oligarchical municipal 
corporations which were in possession of the franchise. In 
places with a larger number of voters the latter were bought 
individually, that is to say, those who were for sale. The 
abolition of rotten boroughs and the extension of the suffrage 
brought about by the great Reform Bill have generalized this 
last method. The Corrupt Practices Prevention Act of 1854 
(17 & 18 Vie., c. 102), with its minute provisions and severe 
penalties, made no change in political manners. The new 
and greater extension of the suffrage in 1867, which was to 
make bribery difficult by reason of the excessive number of 
persons who would have to be bought, has not been attended 
with better results. On the contrary, the new electors belong- 
ing to the less fortunate classes have only swelled the con- 
tingent of voters who are ready to sell themselves. The effect 
simply was that prices went down with a run, especially after 
the Ballot Act of 1872, which, by introducing secret voting, 
made it impossible to ascertain whether the voter who had taken 
a bribe had really carried out his bargain, and therefore reduced 
the value of the promise that was bought. The exorbitant 
prices which used to be paid just at the close of the poll to 
electors whose vote might turn the scale, have passed into the 
region of history and almost of legend. But, on the other 
hand, the milder or disguised forms of bribery, such as the dis- 
tribution of silver coins and of refreshments in solid and liquid 
form, or the fictitious employment of numerous voters under 
the designation of canvassers, messengers, clerks, bill-posters, 
etc., had increased to a considerable extent. In consequence, 
at the general election of 1868 corrupt practices prevailed. to 
a greater degree than at all the elections of the preceding half- 
century. The election of 1874, in spite of the first application 
of the Ballot, was no purer, and that of 1880 surpassed them 
both in illicit expenditure incurred by the candidates. It was 
estimated at as much as £3,000,000.1 This was the first 
general election in which the Caucus, founded at Birmingham, 
took part, and its participation was thoroughgoing, extending 


1Cf. Hansard, Vol. CCXXIX, p. 1672. 


470 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





to acts of corruption as well. It will be recollected that on 
its appearance on the scene the Caucus had announced, some- 
what grandiloquently, that it was going to purify political 
life, and it was undoubtedly sincere in its aspirations. But 
when brought face to face with reality, a number of Asso- 
ciations fell into the old practices. In a good many places 
the election-mongers of the old régime joined the caucuses and 
slipped even into their executive committees, where they acted 
as tempters and suggested recourse to the time-honoured 
methods on pretence of making the triumph of the good cause 
more secure. Again, the “Man in the Moon,’!? the classic 
agent of electoral corruption, was only too ready to reeommence 
his operations and had no scruples about offering his services. 
They were accepted more often, far more often, than was 
desirable for the reform of political manners. If the Con- 
servatives of Birmingham were to be believed, the Liberal 
Association of that town, the celebrated prototype of the 
Caucus, had been the first to resort to corrupt practices.2 The 
charge was not proved, perhaps because no opportunity had 
presented itself of ascertaining if it was true. But such 
opportunities did occur in several other constituencies, owing 
to the petitions presented against the return of members elected 
in 1880. The disclosures made at the hearings seriously com- 
promised some Liberal Associations, as well as, by the way, 
some Conservative Organizations.? They also established the 
fact that the Associations which dabbled in electoral corruption 
were able, thanks to their collective and anonymous character, 
to practise it under far more dangerous conditions than pre- 
vailed in the old days. The masters of the art sheltered them- 
selves behind the Associations with a coolness which had a 


1 At one place a mysterious person used to arrive with cash, known as the 
‘Man in the Moon,’’ who approached at nightfall and was at once met with 
“What news from the moon?’’ The nickname of the ‘‘ man in the moon,”’ 
alluding to mysterious beings, came to be applied generally to secret agents 
for bribery. 

2 Cf. the letter of the Vice-President of the Conservative Association of 
Birmingham in the Times of April 21, 1880, in which he says: ‘‘ This [secret 
bribery and treating] has been done at all elections by the Liberais since they 
introduced the Caucus into Birmingham, not excepting the late election.’’ 

8 Cf. the enquiries into electoral corruption at Bewdley, Boston, Canterbury, 
Chester, Macclesfield, Sandwich, etc. (Blue Books, 1881, Vols. XX VI, XXVII, 
XXIX, XXXI). 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 471 





dash alike of cynicism and of ingenuousness; for instance, 
having got the candidate and his election agent to sever their 
connection with the Association by means of official resig- 
nations, they quietly indulged in corrupt practices, in the be- 
lief that as the former had ceased to belong to the Association 
they could not be held responsible for its acts however illicit, 
or for the manceuvres of its numerous members.’ 

On the other hand, it is only just to point out that the 
Associations were still more often victims of the prevailing 
corruption; they were constantly exposed to interested offers 
and requests which they would have been glad to decline if 
they could have done so without endangering the success of 
their candidates. Many voters were in the habit of joining 
the Associations in the hope of establishing a claim to fictitious 
employment as messengers, distributers of handbills, etc., 
when the elections came round. The pretensions of a crowd 
of people who claimed to have “helped” or “worked” in 
the election had the effect of swelling the candidate’s ex- 
penditure to an unheard-of degree. When, therefore, in 
consequence of the scandals of the 1880 elections, the Gov- 
ernment submitted a new and much more stringent Bill 
against corrupt practices to the House, the Liberal Caucus 
gave very serious and useful help towards putting it into shape, 
and its co-operation was all the more sincere because the reali- 
zation of the objects aimed at by the new Act was in its per- 
sonal interest, soto speak. Inthe war which the Birmingham 
Caucus was waging on the moderate Liberals throughout the 
country, the Whigs, whose ranks had already been broken 
all along the line, remained standing here and there, thanks 
to their great wealth, which gave them the advantage at 
the elections over their poorer rivals of the Radical Cau- 
cus. The latter therefore might have been able to fight on 
more equal terms if electoral expenditure were reduced, spon- 


1 The report of the parliamentary commissioners on the Chester election 
establishes this peculiar good faith of the bribers: ‘‘ It was arranged that the 
candidates and their agents should sever themselves from the Liberal Associa- 
tion with a view of escaping from responsibility for the acts of the members 
of so large a body. ... The severance was thought so complete, and on the 
announcement of the dissolution of Parliament, a general notion seems to 
have been abroad in the city that the Liberal Association might bribe and 
treat without endangering the seats of the candidates’’ (Blue Books, 1881, 
Vol. XXVI, p. vi). 


472 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES -[rurrp part 





taneously or under compulsion, to a reasonable figure. The 
new Corrupt Practices Act, passed in 1883,1 made this possible 
by the two great changes which it introduced: it prohibited 
the fictitious employment of voters for the election campaign 
and fixed a maximum amount of expenses beyond which a 
candidate cannot go without being unseated.? To enforce 
these provisions, the Act added another innovation, a clause 
forbidding the making of any payment connected with the 
election otherwise than by an “election agent” formally 
appointed for that purpose by the candidate and bound to 
prove by his accounts that the election expenditure had not 
exceeded the legal maximum. Expenses incurred on behalf 
of the candidate by any other person or body had consequently 
to be entered in the election agent’s account, on pain of being 
treated as incurred with a corrupt object. 

This provision as well as the general very severe tone of the 
Act seemed to threaten everybody taking part in electioneer- 
ing. Some people hoped, while others were afraid that the 
caucuses would not be able to work under the new law. A few 
Associations, which evidently had a heavy burden of electoral 
sins on their conscience, were so frightened that they put an 
end to themselves by dissolution. But experience very soon 
showed the groundlessness of both hopes and fears. The 
caucuses work perfectly well and, while continually sailing 
very near the Corrupt Practices Act, do not run much risk of 
losing the fruit of their labours with the unseating of their 
candidate through their dubious practices. For it is extremely 
difficult to furnish legal proof of the candidate’s responsibility 
for acts of the Association which he has not instigated or known 
of beforehand or which are not formally connected with his 
election. Strictly speaking, the candidate comes into being 
only with the election period, whereas the Association has a 
permanent existence, independent of the candidatures which 
arise at indefinite intervals; it acts on the electorate perhaps 
for years before the candidate is selected. Can the latter be 
made responsible for the previous doings of the Caucus, and 


146 & 47 Vic., c. 56. 

2 This amount varies, according to the number of voters in the constituency, 
from £350 to £920 in the boroughs, and from £650 to £1790 in the counties, 
plus £100 for the candidate’s petty expenses. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 473 





would he not be able to set up a convincing alibi? With all the. 
more reason, can the expenses which the Association has in- 
curred in preparing the ground for the eventual candidature be 
included in the maximum amount of expenditure allowed to the 
candidate? Without replying to these questions, the law has 
reproduced the old provision as to the candidate’s responsi- 
bility for the illegal practices committed by his agents, while 
leaving the fact of agency to be determined by the courts in each 
particular instance. But the question of agency has always 
been one of the thorniest in electoral jurisprudence, and the 
collective and anonymous character of the Caucus Associa- 
tions certainly does not make it easier to bring home agency to 
them in the absence of express provisions in the law. The very 
loose legal definition of the relations between the Associations 
and the candidates} has therefore not stood the test of experi- 
ence under the new law better than it did before, and altogether 
the Associations, owing to their permanent existence, rather 
paralyse, to some extent, the effect of the Act than are held 
in check by it. 


1 The law omitted to give a stricter definition of the relations between the 
Associations and the candidates from the above points of view almost deliber- 
ately. During the discussion of the Act of 1883 urgent, even vehement, rep- 
resentations were made to the Legislature to take special measures against 
the caucuses. The attention of the Government was drawn to the fact that 
the Bill brought in by it did not touch the expenditure made by the Associa- 
tions with a corrupt object, independently of the candidates, and previously 
to the election; that the draft contained no provisions against clubs started 
with an almost nominal subscription, and provided with billiard-rooms, dining- 
rooms, etc., with the sole object of obtaining the votes of their members for 
the party; a demand was made that the Associations, or at all events their 
managing committees, should be punished for illicit acts committed by the 
members of these Associations; it was actually proposed even that every 
candidate who came forward as the nominee of a political organization should 
be made liable to the penalties attaching to corruption. These proposals and 
several others of an analogous character, coming mostly from members of the 
Opposition and accompanied by virulent attacks on the Radical caucuses, 
coupled with the name of their patron, Mr. Chamberlain, who was a member of 
the Cabinet, had not disposed the Government to accept the amendments 
moved ; it rejected them as useless or suggested that they should be examined 
at a later stage, no doubt in the belief that the Bill as it stood already increased 
the stringency of the law too much to be overloaded with fresh details which, 
perhaps, would not readily bear a legal construction (cf. Hansard, Vol. 
CCLXXIX, pp. 1667, 1670, 1686, 1687, 1695, Speeches of Stuart Wortley, 
Joseph Cowen, Cecil Raikes, Sir R. Cross; Vol. CCLXXX, pp. 392, 395, 597, 
610-615, 1459, Speeches of J. Cowen, O’Donnell, Stanley Leighton, Randolph 
Churchill; Vol. CCLXXXI, pp. 311, 1133, 1142, Speeches of Lord George 
Hamilton and Newdegate). 


474 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurep part 





This state of things becomes manifest in the application of 
the law, firstly with regard to the provision which places a 
statutory limit on electoral expenditure in order to cut off the 
supplies of corruption and which is consequently, as it were, the 
keystone of the Act. A considerable amount of the expenses 
which promote a candidature, but which having caused the legal 
maximum to be exceeded might have invalidated the election, 
can be incurred exclusively for the Association in the normal 
exercise of its functions. The Organizations can pass off illicit 
outlay in the guise of expenditure as legitimate to all appear- 
ance as, for instance, that relating to the making up of the 
register. The payment of “workers” at elections being pro- 
hibited, the caucuses can pay them in anticipation by nomi- 
nally entrusting the future election canvassers with the 
registration canvass, remuneration for which is not for- 
bidden by the law. In reality, in the vast majority of cases 
the number of registration canvassers is not unduly swollen, 
but in several places it is so, and sometimes even to a scanda- 
lous degree; for instance, hundreds of persons are engaged 
who are supposed to take the electoral census of an average- 
sized borough, or this operation is carried on throughout the 
whole year by instructing paid emissaries to call on the voters 
again and again on pretence of collecting information for 
checking the lists.1_ The Association can embark on prelimi- 
nary expenditure for the benefit of the candidate with all the 
less scruple that the courts are very ready to accept the period 
in which it had been incurred as the criterion of “election ex- 
penses” and to limit it, if not to election time in the strict 
sense of the words, at all events to a lapse of time immediately 
preceding that period.’ 

Even before this very indulgent ruling was laid down subse- 


1Cf. Blue Book, 1893, already quoted, pp. 84, 91, 92. 

2‘*T am not quite satisfied that the constructive doctrine of agency is to be 
carried back to a period long before the actual contest is imminent...” 
declared one of the judges in his decision on the election at Haggerston (Blue 
Books, 1896, Controverted Elections, Part I, p. 30). Similarly in an election 
case in Scotland, one of the judges expressed the opinion that the incriminated 
period ‘‘ was a period at least not much anterior, I will not say to the date of 
nomination, but to the group or series of events which immediately precede 
the nomination, and which, as we all know, begin in the case of a general 
election with the announcement of the Dissolution, and in the case of a bye- 
election with the announcement of the vacancy ”’ (Jbid., Part II, p. 36). 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 475 





quent to the last general election (of 1895), several Organiza- 
tions hit upon various expedients for establishing in a tangible 
manner the solution of continuity between their acts and 
expenses and those of the election period. Sometimes the 
“election agent” of the candidate buys from the Association 
its canvass books and other information constituting the mate- 
rial of war accumulated for years back, for the modest sum of 
five or six pounds, which he enters with scrupulous accuracy 
in the account of the expenditure to be eventually submitted 
to the authorities. Some Associations resort to a more radi- 
cal device to throw the courts off the scent in regard to the 
continuity of the electioneering operations carried on before 
and after the election period; they he low during the whole 
of this period; the moment it begins they “suspend their 
activity ” and disband their followers, who fight as free lances. 
Acting inversely, but always with the same object of guarding 
against the danger of agency, of getting rid of the continuity 
in the acts committed for the benefit of the candidate, certain 
Associations come forward only in a semi-official way with 
their candidates before election time begins. They do not 
“adopt” a candidate beforehand, they only make “overtures 
to him in view of the next vacancy which may occur,” and 
he, without giving a reply, visits the constituency repeat- 
edly, under the auspices of the Association, in a series of 
meetings and “social gatherings” in order to feel the public 
pulse and make up his mind after full enquiry. The announce- 
ment of the election puts an end to his hesitation; he accepts 
and is adopted. Up to that time he was only a “ prospective 
candidate,” whose acts could not bind the “actual candidate,” 
who is a different person in law. The latest judicial decisions 
have almost sanctioned this status of “ prospective candidate ” 
created by the party Organizations and enjoying every im- 
munity.? 

Thus, through the interposition of the Associations, dis- 
bursements for the election may not be considered as “ elec- 
tion expenditure,” and the candidate to whom they would be 
chargeable can be one without coming out as such. 

The great preventive measure for the limitation of expendi- 


1 Blue Book, 1896, quoted above, Part I, pp. 7, 10 (Lancaster election) ; 
Part II, pp. 32, 36 (Counties of Elgin and Nairn election). 


476 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rtuarrp part 





ture not having produced its full effect, the repression and sup- 
pression of actual corrupt practices has not succeeded either, 
and here again the Associations have had, and still have, some- 
thing to do with it. At the outset, following on the elections 
of 1885 and 1886, the new Act seemed to have the effect of 
those marvellous remedies which act like a charm, but gradu- 
ally it became apparent that nothing of the kind had really 
taken place, that the forms alone had changed. The tra- 
ditional purchase of votes as a commodity, already on the 
wane before 1883, has considerably decreased, but it still goes 
on and not without the co-operation of the caucuses, although 
it should be added at once that the Associations as such are 
far from being an important factor in this method of corrup- 
tion. The Act of 1883 has no doubt purged the caucuses 
of their corrupt elements, but there are still some remaining 
here and there, sometimes even among the chairmen or other 
high dignitaries of the Associations, who make themselves 
indispensable by their great qualities as workers. The “ Man 
in the Moon,” although growing more and more rare, cannot 
yet be classed among the fossil mammifers. He is generally 
taken from the ranks of third or fourth rate turfmen. Regular 
agents of the Caucus sometimes “ work” in conjunction with 
them. For instance, of the cloud of caucus-men who descend 
from far and wide on the constituency in which a parliamen- 
tary election is about to be held, all do not spend their time in 
charming the crowd with their eloquence from the top of 
waggonettes or in giving their assistance in the offices of the 
local Association and in the candidate’s committee-rooms, 
some of them accept “special missions ” —they go and “see 
somebody.” They have no need to resort to the mysterious 
practices of the “ Man in the Moon;” as representatives of 
Associations with a legitimate status, they attract no attention 
even in broad daylight; hke so many other politicians, they 
have just come to “help in the election.” 

But the real changes have taken place not so much in the 
character of the agents as in the forms and modes of corrup- 
tion, changes to some of which the Caucus has contributed in 
a special degree. Corruption has become less direct, bargains 
for the purchase and sale of votes have diminished and made 
way for more disguised methods hinted at rather than expressly 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 477 





stated. At the same time, the mode of operation has been 
altered: the individual corruption of former days, with the 
numerous special negotiations implied by it, has been suc- 
ceeded, to a great extent, by wholesale corruption, so to 
speak, which the vast increase in the electorate has made 
well-nigh imperative. The two time-honoured types of Eng- 
lish electoral corruption, bribery and treating, adapted them- 
selves to the new state of affairs. Thus bribery has given 
way to practices which may be described as corruption. by 
consequence, and of which the most refined is the betting 
which takes place on parliamentary candidates as on race- 
horses. A, partisan of a certain candidate, makes a bet with 
B that the candidate in question will be beaten; to win the bet 
B makes a point of voting for that candidate, Q.E.D. This 
ingenious plan soon became a lever for lifting a considerable 
number of voters at a single blow. A partisan of, let us say, 
the Conservative candidate promises a large sum to the leading 
man of the betting community in the event of this candidate 
being returned. The other thereupon lays on him in all the 
bets which he makes. Besides, the great authority which he 
enjoys among betting men makes them take the name of the 
Conservative candidate as an excellent tip; they hasten to 
back their leading man’s favourite, and of course all vote solid 
for him, and try to make their friends do the same. The 
Q.E.D. is at once multiplied by the total number of all these 
persons, and a single “special mission” discharged with tact 
has been sufficient to bring about this result. 

The election house-to-house canvass, which used to be one of 
the great opportunities for bribery, now constitutes only an in- 
direct channel of corruption, it only affords a clue which will 
perhaps be followed up afterwards by the emissaries of the 
Organization. In the present day the unpaid canvasser, a 
member of the caucus, a devout partisan, often has too much 
respect for the law to offer money or its equivalent, but he 
makes a note of the voters who are open to particular atten- 
tions and gives their names to the wire-pullers of the inner 
circle. The latter find suitable intermediaries to determine 
these voters, perhaps by means of a drink or two, perhaps by 
some other civility. With this object a good many canvassers 
of the caucus draw up in the course of their visits a list simi- 


478 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp parr 





lar to that which has been preserved for the edification of 
posterity by the trial of an election petition: “A wants change 
of air. B very favourable, but poor. C promises, but wants 
a little drop. D— wife wants lquoring up.”? 

Standing “little drops,” “liquoring up” and other grati- 
fications of the same kind (known by the generic term of 
“treating ”) increased in importance in proportion as bribery 
became more difficult to practise, but they could not, how- 
ever, be carried out with advantage in the old rudimentary 
fashion. The voters being now too numerous not only to be 
bought, but even to be entertained one by one, treating called 
for a new modus operandi of a more comprehensive character. 
The plan resorted to by the party Organizations for “ work- 
ing on the social tendencies of human nature” happened to be 
admirably adapted to the new requirements, and they became, 
not generally, but often, an instrument of the collective cor- 
ruption which the new conditions of political life demanded. 
In the series of judgments on the election petitions of 1892, 
the judges have brought out very clearly the two terms of 
this equation, that is to say, the newly arisen importance 
of corrupt treating and the tendency of the party Organiza- 
tions to practise it. “It must be borne in mind,” says the 
judgment on the Hexham election,? “that treating is the par- 
ticular form of corruption which can be practised with advan- 
tage at the present time. Now that the constituencies are so 
large it becomes impossible successfully to bribe. . . . But 
with reference to treating it is far otherwise; a very small 
amount is sufficient to procure a great deal of popularity, be- 
cause there is in every constituency now, looking at the very 
wide extension of the franchise, a considerable number of men 
who do not make politics their serious business at all, or even 
attach much importance to one side or the other.* They are 
perfectly ready to vote for the man who is popular; and if by 
reason of treats and picnics and things of that kind you can 
produce a general feeling that the particular candidate is a 
good fellow, and that he is willing to give a poor man a supper 

1 Hansard, Vol. CCLXXIX, p. 1662. 

2 Blue Books, 1893, Controverted Elections (Judgments). 

8 Or, in the words of a Birmingham working-man, who summed up the 


situation to me in a more graphic way: “ Politics is an abstraction, while a 
quart of ale is a tangible thing.”’ 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 479 





or a treat, or an entertainment of this kind and the other, and 
that gets generally spread over the division, an enormous 
amount of popularity is produced by that which, as against an 
Association which did not resort to the same sort of thing, 
would have a very large effect when the polling came to take 
place.”? On the other hand, the Associations, while having 
quite a legitimate purpose, “are lable always to be diverted 
towards illegitimate means, and that is the danger of them.” ? 
The “social meetings ” lavished by the Organizations give sub- 
stance and consistency to this danger, not that, as the judges 
remark, smoking-concerts, conversaziones, etc., are in them- 
selves necessarily corrupting, but because they “ easily degener- 
ate into corrupt treating,” and attract corruptible persons to the 
Associations by the bait of refreshments.* While displaying 
great severity * towards Associations convicted of practices of 
this kind, the judges do not always push the proposition laid 
down by them to its extreme logical consequences, at one 
time declaring that this “practice of giving entertainments, 
picnics, dances, suppers, teas, sports, and what not, would 
certainly amount to corrupt treating if indulged in by the 
candidate,” ® at another, that the opinion cannot be endorsed 
that every act done by the Association and its immediate agents 
(after election time has begun and the candidate has been 
nominated) must be taken to be the act of the candidate, as if it 
were done by an agent of his. So that, if the Association and 
the candidate only take care not to compromise themselves 
together too openly, to be prudent in their intercourse, it can 
screen him from the consequences of electoral corruption, even 


1 Blue Books, 1893, just quoted, p. 6. 

2 Tbid., p. 81, Rochester election. 

3 [bid., pp. 81, 84. 

*The later decisions, given on the election petitions of 1895, are not 
marked by this severity, and take a much more indulgent view of the smok- 
ing-concerts, in which the candidate or his friends of the Association supply 
drinks to electors who would eventually have to vote for or against him. 
“One has heard,’’ says one of the judges, ‘‘even of very learned societies of 
whom it has been said that, with all their learning, with all the wisdom of 
their lectures, they would not entirely succeed, unless there was a little con- 
versazione, ladies being present, and tea, coffee, and other amenities, which to 
these people are, perhaps, at least as agreeable as the beer is to the others” 
(Blue Book, 1896, quoted above, Part I, p. 95). Cf. the same Blue Book, 
Part II, pp. 10, 11. 

5 Blue Books, 1893, p. 11. 6 [bid., p. 62. 


480 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





should it expose a few of its members, and maybe the least im- 
portant ones whom the judges perhaps would not have the heart 
to condemn, to the rigour of the law.! The fact is, that neither 
the law courts nor the Legislature in England have been able 
to entirely divest themselves of the old conception which looked 
on a seat in Parliament, if not as a commodity for the Member’s 
personal use, which has only to be honestly paid for, at all 
events as a prize which is competed for and of which it would 
be unjust to deprive the competitor who has won the race if 
neither he nor his agent have employed or caused the employ- 
ment of fraudulent methods for outstripping their opponents. 
Matters of essentially public concern are influenced by consid- 
erations belonging to the private sphere, down to the legal 
procedure in electoral corruption cases, which follows the 
rules of the civil action where the beaten candidate is the 
plaintiff and his more fortunate rival the defendant.’ 

The cases of corrupt treating brought home to the Associa- 
tions by the judges are not, it is true, very numerous, but that 
is because corrupt doings rarely see the light in England, proof 
of them being extremely difficult to obtain and the legal ex- 
penses of an election petition enormous, as much as £5000. 
Besides, in party circles it has never been considered quite 
fair to present these petitions; for the parties all more or less 
resort to the practices which come within the reach of the law, 
and they are not forgetful of the adage hodie mihi cras tibi. 
As for the authorities, it has just been remarked that they are 
in no way concerned if the parties interested do not come for- 
ward, even if the electoral operations were marked by the 
most shameless corruption. This being so, the cases brought 
to light by the courts may be taken not as isolated facts, but 
as in the nature of types. 

But apart from these cases, of rare or frequent occurrence, 
patent or not, which are liable to legal penalties, the Associa- 

1Cf. (Blue Books, 1893, Vol. XXV, p. 85) the grounds of the judgment in 
the Rochester election, with reference to the responsibility of the representa- 
tives of the Constitutional Association, and of one of them in particular, Mr. 
W., ‘‘ who has undoubtedly been — I will not say the catspaw, although I think 
I might almost be justified in saying it— but who has been the agent of per- 
sons behind, who are far worse than himself. I hesitate to report a man who 
is in such a position as that.’’ 


2 The ‘ Public Prosecutor ’’ has the right to intervene, but only in a col- 
lateral way, like a third party in a lawsuit. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 481 





tions certainly practise the collective treating, which easily 
evades the clutches of the law to a far greater extent, especially 
through the “social meetings ” which they get up in the inter- 
val between the elections. From a legal point of view these 
but rarely contain the technical elements of a breach of the 
law; but as regards the demoralizing effects which they pro- 
duce on the somewhat too “sociable” voters, the result is the 
same. At the approach of the elections the satisfactions pro- 
vided for the “social tendencies” of this section of the elec- 
torate are already a thing of the past and cannot be detected. 
The Organizations go to work exactly like the domestic pois- 
oners who administer arsenic in anodyne doses for months or 
years until they get the better of the gradually enfeebled 
organism; and then when the medical officer makes the post 
mortem examination, he finds nothing or next to nothing to 
set the public prosecutor in motion. 

In a still more disguised fashion does the Association prac- 
tise a sort of corruption on the voters from day to day and for 
years together, by procuring various favours for them, by try- 
ing to find them places, work, getting patients into hospitals, 
obtaining letters of introduction to persons who can be useful 
to them. The Association, in the words of a caucus secretary, 
is the “freemasonry of the humble voter.” The distribution 
of help in money by charitable persons has for a long time 
past been often made to serve party purposes, especially in 
Tory circles, where an electoral following was secured by “a 
judicious use of charities.” These practices have met with 
valuable support from the Organization of the Caucus, which 
in many places cleverly controls the dispensation of charity 
with a political object, by drawing, with its unerring profes- 
sional knowledge, the attention of charitable coreligionists to 
needy persons, by getting lady adherents of the party to visit 
the sick poor, etc. Later on, the candidate of the party reaps 
this crop, discreetly sown by or with the help of the Associa- 
tion, in the form of votes at the election. 

But the candidate does not always leave everything to the 
Association; he also often embarks on preliminary expendi- 
ture, to capture the voters in advance. “Prospective” candi- 
date or even only candidate in petto, he quietly steps through 
the meshes of the Corrupt Practices Act and begins at an early 

VOL. I—2 1 


482 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





stage to load the constituency with his favours. In addition 
to the, so to speak, obligatory subscriptions to local charities 
and others, which constitute “nursing the constituency,” a 
good many candidates, well supplied with the sinews of war, 
present their constituents in spe with a park or a museum, 
with land for building working-men’s clubs, or grounds for 
athletic sports, swimming baths, etc. These tactics, which 
have long been resorted to and are known as “salting the 
constituency,” are supplemented by concerts, evening-parties, 
teas, and picnics provided by the Association. 

Finally, passing from the material sphere to an apparently 
more elevated one, the candidate and the Association unite in 
an ad captandum operation which is the climax of indirect 
and collective corruption, while quite beyond the reach of the 
arm of the law. This consists of the offers and pledges to 
legislate in favour of particular interests, of a certain social 
class or of a certain professional group. It has often been 
pointed out that these practices simply take the place of the 
individual corruption of the pre-democratic era. In fact, they 
are another instance of a system of bargaining in which votes 
are bought by promises which are not less corrupting because 
they are often fallacious. In vouching for these promises, 
the party Organizations give the final touch to their share in 
the disguised and wholesale corruption to the development of 
which they had contributed. 


VI 


The electoral campaign, the principal phases of which I have 
just described, occurs only once in several years, when a new 
Parliament has to be elected (except in cases when a constitu- 
ency has to fill up a seat unexpectedly, owing to the death or 
resignation of the Member or his elevation to the Peerage). 
But the Organizations by no means suspend hostilities in the 
interval; not only do they perfect their armaments, and in 
general continue their warlike preparations, but every year at 
a fixed date they engage in contests with the enemy, which 
are a sort of general rehearsal of the great battle of the parlia- 
mentary elections. These encounters take place at the annual 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING _ 483 





municipal elections, in which local questions almost invariably 
give way to a passage of arms between Liberals and Conserva- 
tives. It will be remembered how the Birmingham Caucus by 
“widening the idea of Liberalism,” developed this custom. 
The Caucus, however, did not make an innovation. The mu- 
nicipal elections in a good many English boroughs had for a 
long time, one might almost say from time immemorial, been 
tainted with political considerations. Under the old régime 
the oligarchical municipal corporations which possessed the 
parliamentary franchise were engrossed in their political 
privileges, which they turned to account, like a stock-in-trade, 
for the benefit of their members, and entirely neglected the 
municipal interests of their boroughs. They were purely and 
simply political machines at the disposal of a party or 
of a great family, of a patron, who bought them. The 
choice of the members of the corporation, the municipal 
administration, the current expenditure, even the control of 
the police which is supposed to protect all citizens indis- 
criminately, and the dispensation of public charity, were 
subordinated to the one idea of establishing or perpetuating 
the ascendency of a party or the political influence of a patron. 
The great enquiry made by the Royal Commission of 1834 on 
the working of municipal institutions threw a flood of light on 
the flagrant abuses of this system, of “this perversion of 
municipal privilege to political objects.”1 After the Reform 
Bill of 1832, which extended the parliamentary suffrage and 
abolished the pocket boroughs, and the municipal reform of 
1835, which entrusted municipal administration to the large 
body of ratepayers, it became impossible to extract the par- 
liamentary vote from the municipal privilege with the same 
facility, but the exploitation of the latter for the benefit of the 
former was far from being at an end. The municipal vote, 
even when exercised by a considerable number of electors, 
being easier to secure, owing to its smaller importance and its 
local limitation, the election-mongers, who were on the look- 
out for parliamentary suffrages, fastened on this vote, and 


1 Report on Municipal Corporations in England and Wales, Blue Books, 
1835, Vol. XX XIII, p. 34, §73. Cf. also §§ 76, 77, 121; Appendix, Part I (Blue 
Books, Vol. XXXIV), pp. 14, 440, 530; Part II, pp. 916, 999, 1033; Part III, 
p. 1958; Part IV, pp. 2094, 2111, 2174, 2486, 2498, 2499, 2538, 2547, etc. 


484 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





in most of the boroughs they fought the municipal elections 
on political lines, arraying the voters as Whigs and Tories, 
and thus preparing the order of the parliamentary battles 
beforehand. In consequence it became the custom to bring 
the electoral corruption, which was the great lever of English 
electoral life, to bear on the municipal elections. The voter 
whose municipal vote was bought considered himself in a way 
bound in honour to vote for the same political party at the 
parliamentary elections, so much so that the rival party did 
not even try to buy his parliamentary vote. The local elec- 
tion agents therefore had a saying that “£10 spent at a 
municipal is better and more advantageous than £100 spent 
at the parliamentary contest.” ? Where the political parties 
were evenly matched, as in Lancashire, for instance, politics 
was the rule in municipal elections and with politics corrup- 
tion. On the other hand, in a good many boroughs politics 
were not imported into the municipal elections, even in large 
towns like Bradford, for instance;*® but directly the plan of 
municipal elections on party lines was adopted in a borough, 
corruption took up its permanent abode there.* 

The improvement of political manners began to tell on this 


1“ The bribe received at a municipal election is a sort of consideration for 
his giving a vote to the same political party at the parliamentary election ” 
(Report from the Select Committee on the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, 
Blue Books, 1860, Vol. X, p.16). ‘‘ You bribe a man at the municipal election, 
and he has some sort of gratitude toward you, perhaps, or you expect it, and 
you secure his vote at the general election ’’ (Jbid., p. 259). 

2 From the evidence of the principal agent of the Conservative party, Rose, 
given before the Select Committee referred to above. The same witness said 
in his deposition: ‘‘ The real nursery of the evil (of corruption) is in the 
municipal contests; and these oft-recurring contests have led to the establish- 
ment of what I might almost term an organized system of corruption in the 
municipal boroughs throughout the kingdom, which provides a machinery 
ready made to hand, available when the parliamentary contests arrive”’ 
(1bid., p. 90). 

3 Report from the Select Committee on Parliamentary and Municipal Elec- 
tions, Blue Books, 1868-1869, Vol. VIII, § 2795. 

4 Cf. by way of example the deposition relating to Windsor, which states 
how the borough, at one time “‘ perfectly pure,’’ even before 1835, under the 
régime of close corporations, became corrupt in consequence of the introduc- 
tion of politics into municipal elections: ‘‘ The system of corruption was 
introduced for the purpose of one political party getting the predominance. 
I do not hesitate to say that I trace the whole political demoralization, if it be 
so in our borough, entirely to that system affecting the virtue of the con- 
stituency "’ (1 bid., §§ 749-754). 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 485 





state of things, and the habit of applying the divisions of 
political parties to municipal elections was growing less com- 
mon and was, perhaps, about to gradually become extinct.! 
But at this point the Caucus appeared on the scene, and it 
gave the old practice a fresh lease of life; it raised it to the 
level of a principle justifiable by the general welfare and 
even to be founded on reason. “Political principle, where 
it is sincere,” declared Mr. Chamberlain in his apologia for 
the Caucus, “is to a great extent a prevalent habit of mind 
—the Conservative being naturally inclined to keep things 
as they are for fear they should be made worse, and the 
Liberal eagerly embracing change in the hope of making them 
better. This permanent distinction shows itself as much in 
municipal as in national affairs; it affects our judgment and 
conduct whether we are considering the removal of nuisances 
or the disestablishment and the disendowment of the English 
Church. It should also be remembered that the exclusion 
from local affairs of the higher issue only leaves the door open 
to lower influences. If the battle be not fought on political 
grounds, there will none the less be party divisions, though 
these will turn on personal claims or petty local objects. Men 
are no longer chosen because they are Liberals or Conserva- 
tives, — in other words, because they belong to one or other of 
the great orders of political thought, — but because they are 
popular with a faction, or because they will promote some 
sectional object which interests an active clique; and in this 
way the administration of the affairs of a great community 
sinks to the level of an unintelligent and selfish parochial- 
ism.”? The reader will recollect the success with which the 
Birmingham Caucus “widened Liberalism” by introducing 
politics into all the local elections, as well as the grievances 
of the Conservatives ousted from the town council. He will 
also remember that at the time of the foundation of the 
Liberal Federation several delegates who attended the open- 


1“, ,. The thing is breaking up rather more now; it is gradually getting 
less’’ (Report from the Select Committee on Parliamentary and Municipal 
Elections, Blue Books, 1868-1869, Vol. VIII, § 142). 

“) . . less political excitement in connection with the municipal elections 
in recent years; desire to enter the town council irrespectively of politics ”’ 
(Ibid., §§ 1053-1058). 

2 The Caucus, p. 19. 


486 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp parr 





ing meeting took strong exception to the practice favoured 
by the Birmingham Caucus of converting the municipal elec- 
tions into a political contest. But before long, at the instiga- 
tion of the caucuses, the example of Birmingham was followed 
in most of the English boroughs, and with the same object 
of making municipal elections a preparation for the parlia- 
mentary elections, of setting up in the mind of the voter a 
psychological continuity between his municipal vote and his 
parliamentary suffrage. Under the old system it was estab- 
lished by means of the corruption which appealed to the feel- 
ing of honour and gratitude of the person bribed; for this 
peculiar ethics was substituted the no less peculiar logic that 
it was absurd to be guided by certain considerations at munici- 
pal elections and by other considerations at parliamentary elec- 
tions. It is true that a number of good citizens who were 
outside the Caucus also preferred the political order of battle 
in municipal elections. They no doubt rejected Mr. Chamber- 
lain’s singular theory, according to which a man who wants 
to preserve the establishment of the Church of England cannot 
help wishing to keep the dirt in the streets and public places; 
they were aware of the fact, admitted even by a good many 
representatives of the Caucus,’ that there are plenty of Con- 
servatives who have very liberal ideas on the subject of mu- 
nicipal administration; but they held, in agreement with Mr. 
Chamberlain, that municipal elections conducted on a political 
basis would lift the contest above wretched parochial squab- 
bles and personal jealousy. 

These hopes were destined to disappointment. In the 
meanwhile each year marked a fresh stage in the custom 
which was transforming municipal elections into a battle of 
political parties. It often met with opposition; in not a 
few towns the Caucus had to return to the charge more than 
once before it succeeded in establishing it. On my first long 
provincial tour (in 1889) I found it already in vogue in all 
the chief places I visited from London northwards up to the 
Tyne country. At that time this was a sort of frontier be- 
tween political municipalities and non-political municipalities. 


1One of my correspondents among the representatives of the Liberal 
Caucus expressed himself as follows on this subject: ‘‘ Many so-called Tories 
are quite as Liberal in local politics as some so-called Liberals.” 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 487 





Farther north, and especially in Scotland, the mixing up of 
politics with municipal matters was vehemently repudiated. 
There were barely a few Scotch boroughs which formed an 
exception. Asa rule, people followed, as some of my corre- 
spondents or interlocutors phrased it, the “Scotch principle 
according to which local affairs ought to be considered as non- 
political.”? If the Liberals are to be believed, the Tories, 
who were in a minority in Scotland, sometimes secretly 
infringed the rule by voting at municipal elections for their 
political coreligionists, but, at all events, in public no one 
put forward the Birmingham doctrine. At the present time (in 
1896), after an interval of a few years, the situation is com- 
pletely changed: politics in local elections are now the 
rule in all the important towns. . And it is all the more so 
in England. To be successful, a candidate for the town coun- 
cil must be adopted and presented by the Association of the 
one or the other party.” It is true that a man who enjoys 
great local notoriety, or a working-man candidate in a popu- 
lar constituency with somewhat socialistic tendencies, might 
enter the lists against the Organizations of the regular parties 
with better prospects of success than at the parliamentary 
elections, but these are exceptional cases which only confirm 
the rule. The Organizations sometimes also spontaneously 
refrain from bringing forward party candidatures when they 
are confronted with very respectable independent candidates, 
so that the election ceases to be in any way political, but this 
contingency is becoming more and more uncommon, and it is 
the Birmingham system which prevails. 

Experience has: not vindicated it but has: proved that this 
method which, pushed to its extreme consequences, gives an 
ardent Liberal or a zealous Conservative the preference over a 
good and honest administrator, is rather destructive of healthy 
public life. While from some points of view the regrettable 


1 Some of my Scotch correspondents were almost offended when I asked 
them if they made a political fight of municipal elections, and they replied: 
‘* Politics are extraneous matter altogether at local elections, and do not affect 
such issues in the slightest degree.’’ 

2 In the great majority of cases the rule is that the ward Organization selects 
the candidate for the town council. Sometimes the choice is made by the 
‘‘hundreds,’’ but in any event the executive committee of the Caucus has a 
hand in it. ; 


1 


488 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrep part 





effect of mixing up politics with municipal affairs, which is 
unquestionable, has not assumed a very grave aspect, at least 
for the moment, from other points of view it appears in a 
more threatening light. So far as the integrity of municipal 
administration is concerned, it may be said in a general way 
that municipal interests are not sacrificed to those of the 
political parties or of the politicians. This fortunate result 
is due to two causes, the salutary action of which is of uni- 
form strength: the comparatively elevated tone of English 
public life, the vigilance of public opinion which strongly 
condemns all improper dealings with public money,’ and 
secondly, the fact that the principal officials, the chiefs of the 
municipal departments, are appointed irrespective of all party 
considerations and solely for their special competence. True, 
the subordinate posts have become the electoral change which 
the councillors distribute to the adherents of the party, but 
being placed under non-political chiefs the holders of these 
situations forget their political origin when they cross the 
threshold of the town hall, and all the more so because 
they do not change with the majority of the town coun- 
cil. Thus in the office-rooms there are no political par- 
ties. It is not uncommon for Radical municipalities to 
have Tory employés in the principal posts. Generally men 
of large experience, of professional knowledge, these officers 
keep a jealous eye on the public money and, to a certain extent, 
make up for the incompetence of the members of the municipal 
assemblies. The latter, if not always competent to manage 
the affairs of the town, are generally honest, and their adminis- 
tration is not marked by flagrant abuses; in England there is 
no direct plundering of the municipal coffers, and it is not 
often that illicit profit is derived from them in indirect ways. 
Of course, as in all cases where large expenditure has to be 
incurred, contracts and orders to be adjudged, which naturally 
invite jobbing, as the flame attracts the moth, the possibility, 


1 Not long ago, in a very large town of the Midlands, a town councillor 
was suspected of having bought some land on the assumption that it might be 
wanted for a tramway line, and that he might be able to resell it to the town 
at a profit. The calculation did not prove well-founded, but the council none 
the less passed a resolution censuring the speculator. The result of this 
resolution was that the councillor who was the subject of it felt obliged to 
resign his seat and retire from public life. 


FouRTH cHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 489 





or even the probability, of unduly swollen expenditure, by 
which private individuals benefit, is not excluded in English 
municipalities, but, all things considered, corruption is un- 
known in them. 

Nevertheless, amid these eminently favourable conditions 
there appear symptoms which cannot be ignored or which 
are even of a decidedly disquieting nature. The rule which 
makes competence the sole test of candidates for responsible 
municipal offices meets with exceptions in practice. It gives 
way to the temptation which besets the members of the politi- 
cal party in a majority on the council to get places at all 
hazards for political friends. My enquiries, which have only 
extended in an incidental way to municipal administration, 
have none the less disclosed facts in connection with it which 
are much to be deplored. Thus, in the very heart of England, 
in two towns of the first rank, the one in Lancashire, the other 
in Yorkshire, the sanitary service is sadly neglected in certain 
wards which are conspicuous for their high rate of mortality 
and in which small epidemics of typhoid fever or other con- 
tagious maladies break out from time to time. .The reason is 
stated to be that “an incompetent partisan had been appointed 
instead of a hygienist.” In other departments a good many ap- 
pointments of zealous party-men, little qualified for the dis- 
charge of their duties, have also been brought to my notice; 
some of them recognized their unfitness themselves and hon- 
estly acknowledged it by resigning a few weeks after their 
appointment. In not a few town councils the division into 
political parties introduced during the election campaign con- 
tinues practically, if not formally, in the council itself, and the 
result is that the objections of the minority cannot be raised 
with advantage; for the political party in a majority, being 
inclined to look on criticism as a political manceuvre, invari- 
ably stifles opposition by a “party vote.” Being practically 
unchecked, the majority plunges into heedless expense, — in- 
volves the town in too heavy a debt, perhaps. 

Although cases of this kind are, it would seem, becoming 
more common, they are far from assuming a really grave 
aspect from their special point of view and compelling at- 
tention. But beneath them there already appears a general 
phenomenon, the gravity of which is much more incontesta- 


490 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [tnrrp parr 





ble —the indifference to municipal matters which is grow- 
ing up aimong the citizens. They inevitably leave the 
burden of their duty to the common weal to be borne by the 
‘political parties who have monopolized local public life and 
imported into it their purely conventional criterion, the blind 
formalism of which, far from drawing out, tends rather to 
repress all genuine and living interest. The first effect of 
this state of things is strikingly manifested in the decline of 
the intellectual and, to some extent, moral standard of the 
personnel of the town councils. Instead of raising it, as was 
promised by the advocates of “politics” in municipal elec- 
tions, politics have lowered it, and all the more easily because 
the first postulate of their thesis, according to which the 
political character imparted to local contests would ennoble 
them, would surround them with a halo of great principles, 
was erroneous. For politics, while appealing to lofty princi- 
ples, are not free from vulgar ambition and cupidity and petty 
self-esteem, and very often only conceal them more success- 
fully under the grand language of which they have such a 
plentiful supply. Politics, to repeat another old truism, have 
no virtue of their own; they are what the men who engage in 
them make them. And the men who had to be busy in the 
municipal elections were the men of the Caucus, the ward 
people whose elevation of mind and character we are already 
acquainted with. 

Devotion to the party being, under the Birmingham system, 
the first qualification for admission to municipal honours, 
inevitably became before long the principal condition of such 
admission. ‘Too often these honours were simply the reward 
of the most active ‘“‘ workers” of the caucuses. The men who 
were competent to deal with public affairs, but who belonged 
to the opposite political party, were shut out beforehand. 
Among the adherents of the party the moderate men, the men 
of business, shrank from going through all the nauseating 
incidents of an electoral campaign conducted under the aus- 
pices of the residuum of their own party and under a running 
fire from the residuum of the opposite one, and from don- 
ning the party livery for a contest with which politics 
have nothing to do. The good citizens therefore, far 
from being attracted by politics, were rather deterred by them 


FOURTH cHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 491 





from taking part in municipal life. It appears that in this 
respect the situation has become much worse in the course of 
the last few years, in proportion as politics have penetrated 
more deeply into the municipal elections. On the occasion of 
my first tour in the provinces (in 1889), I pretty often heard 
it said that “good men (the Tories said “ gentlemen”) would 
not stand for the town council”; but on visiting the same towns 
after an interval of six years I was much struck by the tone 
of melancholy and sometimes of exasperation in which the 
effects of the introduction of politics into municipal affairs 
were spoken of. I no longer heard, as I formerly did, the 
specious argument that they created a purer electoral atmos- 
phere, that they raised the character of the local contests, ete. 
In one of the most important towns of the kingdom, with a 
glorious municipal past, one of its leading citizens complained 
bitterly of the degradation of the town council, explain- 
ing that this was bound to be so “with the present system 
which limits the choice to members of the dominant political 
party. It is impossible for the quality of the members not to 
decline. In our council barely a third of the members are men 
of average ability; the rest are nonentities. Luckily, they 
follow their abler colleagues. But what will this bring us to? 
The only hope is that in twenty years’ time the deterioration of 
the council will be such that the system will bring its own de- 
struction; the sickened and disgusted population will rise in re- 
volt.” I will depart in this instance from the rule which I have 
adopted of not naming the towns referred to for facts of a gen- 
eral description; for the town in question is the very one which 
was the instigator of the introduction of politics into municipal 
elections, which revived this practice of the old régime and pro- 
moted it to the dignity of a principle of government. I mean the 
city of Birmingham. And I must add that the author of the 
remarks just quoted is by no means a discontented member of 
the minority, but a representative of the dominant party, and 
even more, one of the leaders of its Organization. The name 
having been given, [see no objection to completing the quotation 
by the sentences which contain, as it were, a synthesis of the 
working of this system at Birmingham: “ At the outset Mr. 
Chamberlain, by his example and his prestige, induced a good 
many intelligent men to enter the municipality. But since 


492 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





matters have been left to the natural play of the system, it 
has only deteriorated municipal representation.” 

Outside the municipal council the mischievous effects of the 
system in question are not less felt both during the election 
period and after it. The political importance attached to the 
municipal elections makes the contest particularly keen, as 
was the case in the pre-caucus era, but with this serious differ- 
ence, that in the old days, when corruption was the great 
weapon at municipal elections, the fierceness of the combatants 
was that of condottierit, whereas now the Caucus sets bigoted 
partisans by the ears. It is less expensive and is always 
more effective to capture people’s minds, even by fraudulent 
means, than to buy their consciences. Corruption has not on 
that account disappeared from municipal elections; it fills a 
smaller place in them than formerly, as in English electoral 
life in general, but it is still practised enough to involve 
municipal candidates in an expenditure amounting to £200 
and more in a ward of a moderately important town where the 
electoral machinery (offered by the Caucus) is ready to hand. 
In the majority of cases corruption is only a subsidiary or 
even an accidental resource; the principal incentive is sup- 
plied by party passion, which is never allowed to die out. 
From year to year, even when there are no parliamentary elec- 
tions, the party fight is resumed on the occasion of the renewal 
of the town councils. And there is more truth at the present 
time in the remark made in the great enquiry of 1834 into 
municipal corporations by a witness who was explaining the 
evil effects of politics always turned on even at municipal 
elections: “There is no cooling time.”? In the present day 
there is the Caucus to add fuel to the flame. Animosity be- 
tween fellow-townsmen has become a fixture; they are bound 
to fly at each other’s throats in everyday life about their 
local affairs, because they happen to differ on certain questions 
which are being discussed in Parliament. 

The representatives of the party Organizations are perfectly 
well aware of the effects of introducing politics into municipal 
affairs and they make no secret whatever of them. But they 
are not at liberty to give up the system because it is eminently 
useful and even necessary for keeping the machine of the Caucus 


1 Op. cit., Appendix, IV, 2499. 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 493 





in order. It would get rusty for want of use, it would fall to 
pieces if it were set in motion only once in five or six years, 
on the occasion of the parliamentary elections; the zeal of the 
“workers” would die out in the interval, and the discipline 
‘of the followers of the party would grow lax. They must be 
kept moving, be drilled continually, be made to rehearse the 
part which they have to perform during the parliamentary elec- 
tion campaign. The annual municipal elections supply the 
pretext and the means of “keeping the thing going.” And 
even if the leaders of the caucus wished to suspend party 
animosity at the municipal elections, they are prevented from 
doing so by their “workers,” who look on these contests not 
only as an opportunity for gaining distinction, for establish- 
ing claims, but, owing to their temperament, also find in them 
a sort of moral gymnastics. It has happened many a time 
that the leaders of the caucus have given up opposing an 
excellent municipal councillor and very respectable individual 
solely on account of his “politics,” or have settled with the 
leaders of the rival party to exclude politics from the munici- 
pal elections, and that these intentions and arrangements have 
been defeated by the opposition of the “ workers,” who declared 
that they would not “work” at all at the parliamentary elec- 
tion if a truce were observed at the municipal elections. In 
this connection there is no distinction to be made between the 
parties, no reason for incriminating, for instance, the party 
which first introduced the Caucus; for one case chargeable to 
the Liberal Organization I could cite another implicating the 
Tory Organization; it is in the nature of the “machine.” 

The municipal election being considered as a preparation and 
a weapon for the parliamentary elections, the interest of the 
party Organizations in the former is generally exhausted with 
the elections; they pay very little or no heed to the way in 
which the municipal councillors discharge their duties, which 
are in themselves non-political. Very different is the attitude 
of the Associations towards those for whom they obtain a seat 
in Parliament. 


VII 


The preponderating part played by the Association in the 
election of the Member naturally gives it special claims on 


494 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp parr 





him. It is the Association which has to a certain extent made 
the Member, and it is that body which is the recipient, in the 
same proportion, of what the M.P. owes to his constituents. 
Interposing between him and his electors, the Caucus not only 
intercepts, so to speak, the deference which the electors have 
a right to expect from their representative, but imposes on 
him additional, or, at any rate, stricter duties towards itself. 
The dependence of the M.P. on those who elected him was 
pretty considerable before the advent of the Caucus; it had 
been continually on the increase for half a century, since 1832. 
Directly the great electoral reform had installed free opinion 
in the place of aristocratic oligarchy, the former set up the 
pretension of controlling the men who governed or legislated 
in its name. The very year of the Reform Bill witnesses 
attempts at giving peremptory instructions to Members. 
The electors of the city of London set the example,! which 
is immediately followed in several large provincial towns.? 
However, the movement does not gather strength in this 
extreme aspect and practically amounts to a manifestation 
more formal than otherwise, which only heralds the new 
order of things. But from year to year the control ex- 
ercised by the electors over their Members extends with 
the development of means of communication and of the 
Press. When there were no railways or telegraphs, and 
when a letter or a newspaper took days and days to travel a 
few hundred miles, and the cheap Press was not in existence 
to keep the public informed of the sayings and doings of Par- 
liament, the Member was, by the force of things, free from 
the supervision of his constituents; he was a real plenipoten- 
tiary and in a still higher degree than the diplomatist of the 
days before the telegraph. Steam and electricity in reduc- 
ing distances had not failed to bring the Member under the 
very eyes of his electors, and the penny morning paper, con- 


1 The “ London resolutions’ of the 17th October, 1832, are to this effect: 
. .. Secondly, ‘‘That Members chosen to be representatives in Parliament 
ought to do such things as their constituents wish and direct them to do”. 
Fourthly, ‘‘That a signed engagement should be exacted from the Member 
that he would at all times and in all things act conformably to the wishes 
of his constituents deliberately expressed, or would at their request resign the 
trust with which they honoured him” (Annual Register, 1832, p. 300). 

2A, Alison, History of Europe from 1815 to 1852, Vol. V, p. 356. 


FoURTH cHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 495 





taining the report of the sitting of the House which had finished 
overnight, enabled them to follow events in all their kaleido- 
scopic changes. ‘The electors could now form an idea of the 
possible solution of the questions under discussion before the 
time came for taking a decision on them, and watch their 
Member to see if he took what seemed to them the right path. 
The next step with many electors was a wish to show him the 
way. The communications on this subject addressed to M.P.’s 
became more and more common; on the eve of important divi- 
sions they received letters, or even telegrams begging them to 
vote in this or that manner.’ For a long time, however, the 
restrictions on the Member’s freedom to do as he liked were 
weakened by the fact that he owed his seat, in a great measure, 
to his own purse and to the efforts of his personal friends, 
who swept up votes for him by fair means or foul. Besides, 
the pressure put upon the M.P.’s was only intermittent and 
irregular. 

But when the second Reform Bill flung millions of new 
voters into the political arena, and ideas were more widely 
propagated throughout the country by the ever-spreading 
power of the Press and by other means, the electoral de- 
pendence of Members once more made a great advance: the 
growth in the number of voters who watched the course of 
events, with or without discernment, meant an increase of the 
number of judges whom the M.P. had to face in the person 
of his electors. But this salutary result, while imparting 
more genuineness to representative government, of which 
the jealous authority of public opinion is the very essence, 
was profoundly affected by the permanent electoral Organ- 
izations which were launched about the same time under 
the representative and democratic flag. They inevitably 
gave a rigid form to the new relations between electors 
and Members, which they directed into an uninterrupted 
and regular channel. Constituting themselves guardians of 
those relations, the democratic party Organizations assumed 
over the Members and even over the candidates for Parlia- 
ment a formal authority, which tended to substitute the — 
supervision of warders for the moral control of free opinion. 


1Cf. Robert Lowe, Speeches and Letters on Reform, Lond., 2d edit., 1867, 
p. 89. 


496 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruarrp parr 





And as they disposed of the machinery, the assistance of which 
is henceforth indispensable to all those who court the popular 
suffrages, they were able to make themselves respected. It 
will be remembered that there was opposition at the outset. 
Powerful personalities, resolute characters, the Forsters and 
the Cowens, refused to bow to the yoke, but the great mass of 
politicians, who were not strong enough to resist, tacitly acqui- 
esced in it. Then on the first important occasion, in the crisis 
caused by Mr. Gladstone’s Home-Rule Bill (of 1886), the right 
which the Caucus had assumed over the Members was again 
challenged for a time, to wit, by the dissentient Liberals who 
appealed from the Associations to the electors. Whatever may 
have been the success of the Liberal Unionists at the poll, they 
were all turned out of the official Liberal party, and within 
its precincts the caucuses remained supreme. Their authority 
is now recognized and accepted, and they make the M.P.’s 
feel it to a degree and within limits which vary according to 
the persons concerned and according to the nature of the elec- 
toral obligations incumbent on or imposed on the Members. 
The personal servitudes,’ so to speak, of the Members 
towards their constituents are of three kinds: one affects the 
person of the M.P.; another his political influence; the third 
his political conscience. For the vast majority of electors the 
deference which the Member owes them consists of appearing 
before them as often as possible. Formerly the Member, after 
having shaken hands with almost everybody and kissed the 
babies during his canvass, was free for the whole term of the 
Parliament, and disappeared from the horizon until the next 
general election. Now, the electors, more impressed with 
their own importance, require the M.P. to descend from his 
Olympus and come amongst them. They insist upon it no 
doubt from a desire to keep in political touch with him, but 
especially from feelings of pride and vanity which delight in 
receiving the homage ef persons who put in an appearance as 
at a court, as well as from a yearning felt by many a humble 
_ voter for material possession, so to speak. They want ocular 
demonstration that the Member really belongs to them; he 


1 We are already acquainted with the real servitudes; they consist of the 
subscriptions to the local institutions of public utility and to the Organization 
of the party, especially towards registration expenses. 


FourTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 497 





must exhibit himself to them in flesh and blood, talk to them 
for hours together, exert himself physically and intellectually 
for them. And the Member had better not try to shirk it, the 
electors are not accommodating on this point — “he must come 
down,” “we will have him.” The Caucus tries to gratify them 
by inviting the Member to meetings or “social” gatherings 
which it organizes for this purpose, and all the more readily 
because this is for its own benefit: these performances of the 
M.P. stimulate the zeal of the members of the Association, 
rouse their “enthusiasm,” strengthen their power of cohesion, 
apart from their usefulness in cementing the relations between 
the electors and their Member, and consequently in facilitating 
the task of the Organization at the next election. 

Far more important is the share of the Caucus in the second 
servitude to which the Member is subject, and which consists 
in rendering personal services to the electors. The applica- 
tions made to the M.P.’s in this connection are rather a new 
trait in political manners due to the extension of the suffrage 
and to the suppression of the coarser forms of electoral corrup- 
tion. Giving his vote gratuitously, many an elector holds that 
it is only right that his Member should do him a small service 
when opportunity offers. England not being pre-eminently 
a bureaucratic and centralized country, the intervention of the 
Member in favour of his constituents has not the same weight 
as in certain countries of the Continent, but it does carry 
some. The fact remains that the M.P.’s are often appealed 
to for assistance, and from year to year in an ever-increasing 
degree. Their correspondence has attained alarming propor- 
tions in the last decade. A good many of these correspondents 
write to them on political questions of the day or on local 
business, but the majority address them about their private 
affairs. In most of these requests the caucus of the locality 
intervenes in one way or another. The caucus often backs 
up the applicant and gets him the ear of the Member. An 
elector who is in trouble invokes the good offices of one of the 
high dignitaries of the Association, of the President or Chair- 
man, or if he is not acquainted with them he asks for the 
secretary’s recommendation in his capacity of adherent of the 
party. If the elector applies direct to the Member, it is still 
the caucus which very often gives its opinion on his request; 

VOL. I—2 kK 


498 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruarep parr 





for the M.P. asks it for particulars:of the applicant, his posi- 
tion in the party, his political influence, etc. Nothing can be 
got out of a good many Members without the caucus, not even, 
it appears, tickets for the Strangers’ Gallery in the House of 
Commons. Whenever the caucus itself takes the initiative in 
asking for a favour for one of its members or adherents, the 
M.P. has of course to pay it particular attention. 

But it is mainly in the sphere of politics, of the political 
line of conduct to be followed, that the dependence of the 
Member on the Organization shows itself in its strictest form. 
To be adopted as a candidate, he has already had to give the 
caucus guarantees of his orthodoxy, to subscribe to all the 
items in its programme. But agreement on principles is not 
enough for the Organization, it does not allow the Member a 
free hand in their application; he must comply with their 
wishes on points of detail as well. The zealots of the caucus 
do not lose sight of him for a moment; they scrutinize his 
votes; they weigh his words. Composed of people whose 
political faith is more ardent than reflective, the caucus is 
almost always ahead of the Member in the matter of opinions, 
and it often feels the need of stimulating him, of keeping him 
up to the mark. On important occasions the caucus does this 
with some solemnity; it passes a formal “resolution ” request- 
ing the M.P. to vote in such and such a manner, to take up 
this or that attitude. However extravagant the resolution 
may be, no Member can venture to disregard it. He must 
have it out with his Association, give his reasons and obtain 
approval of them.? The friendly relations which the Member 
maintains with the big men in the local caucus make this 
dependence less onerous; sometimes it is almost disguised 
by the entente cordiale between the Association and _ its 
nominee, but it none the less continues to exist intact and 

1 Some time ago, in connection with a measure of slight importance, but 
which stirred up democratic passions, a Member who bears one of the most 
illustrious names in the contemporary history of Liberalism, received from 
his Association, like many of his colleagues in the House, an injunction to 
vote against the Bill. In great embarrassment he consulted an eminent 
publicist, who knew his constituency: ‘‘ What answer am I to send them ?”’ 
—‘*No answer at all; that’s the best thing you can do.’’ The advice was 
followed. ‘‘He could afford it,’’ remarked the publicist in telling me the 


story, ‘‘ being the son of his father; but any one else would not have been able 
to do it.” 


FOURTH CHAP.] CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 499 





inexorable, ready to break forth at the first shock. The pres- 
sure put on the Member seems to the caucus-men all the more 
unobjectionable because they are not promoting any personal 
interest’ by it and think they are serving a cause; and all 
the more legitimate in regard to the particular M.P. be- 
cause he owes his election to their disinterested exertions as 
“workers ” made for reasons of the same order: having lent 
him their moral resources, they consider themselves entitled 
to a mortgage over his conscience. And as they have power 
to foreclose, the Member who wants to be re-elected cannot take 
a high tone, the instinct of self-preservation restrains hin. 
From time to time he perhaps chafes at his bit, but he takes 
care not to kick over the traces; for, as I have often heard it 
remarked, “to quarrel with the caucus is to quarrel with the 
constituency.” The times of heroic resistance have gone by; 
if the Member finds himself hopelessly at variance with the 
caucus, he quietly gives up the game, he does not seek re- 
election, at least in the same constituency, “in order not to 
go against his party.” 

Cases of serious difference on points of opinion and conduct 
are, however, becoming uncommon. Being no longer able to 
be master of his ideas, of his convictions, the Member is more 
and more inclined to do without them, or at all events to await 
an impulse from outside before giving them shape and consist- 
ency. The habit which he contracts of obeying this impulse 
makes it particularly easy for the M.P. to be converted to 
ideas of which he was or thought he was an opponent the day 
before. Hence in the last twelve or fifteen years the Caucus 
has been able on many occasions to record conversions, the 
number, thoroughness, and, above all, rapidity of which are 
sufficient to inspire a missionary with jealousy. Dragged at 
the heels of the Caucus, with but little space left for his own 
movements, the M.P. is getting more and more stripped of 
his old character of representative and becoming a simple 
delegate, a clerk. This is especially true of the Liberal party. 
In the Tory party more latitude is allowed to the M.P.’s; the 
Conservative Associations do not dictate their votes to them 
in a peremptory way. They refrain from this probably not so 
much out of philosophic respect for political freedom of con- 
science, as from a feeling of hierarchical deference which has 


500 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rarep parr 





lingered in Tory circles longer than elsewhere. But there, 
too, the new Organizations which hold the key of the con- 
stituencies have powerfully contributed to lower the prestige 
of the M.P., to make him docile and submissive. There are of 
course constituencies with a slack political life, in which the 
pressure put on the M.P. is contined to attacks on his purse, 
to frequent applications for subscriptions to “local institu- 
tions,” but even there he is not safe from contingencies in 
which his political conduct would be challenged. 

Like all servitudes, that of the Caucus has its compensations 
for the Member. Long before the Caucus there were always 
in every constituency some personages, very few in number, 
who exercised a commanding influence and were in a way 
the makers of the Member. Much freer with regard to them 
in his political conduct, he was less so in his personal rela- 
tions, whereas now, thanks to the considerable number of the 
caucus-men and to the conditions of publicity in which their 
authority is exercised, the personal yoke of the M.P. is, per- 
haps, less burdensome ina certain sense. Another effect, and 
a more important one, of the new predicament of the Member 
is that the caucus in interposing between him and the electors 
serves him as a Shield. It does not allow any faulttinding 
with the Member who enjoys its confidence within the ranks 
of the party. Independent criticism by isolated persons is 
stifled by the trusty followers of the caucus; organized as 
they are, they constantly mount guard around their man, 
preventing discontent from breaking out, baffling intrigues 
directed against the M.P. The latter reaps the benefit of 
this on the usual terms of certain despotic governments: less 
moral dignity but more security. 

Such is the authority which the Caucus wields over the 
Member as far as its power goes. Seeing that the Caucus is 
not the sole factor of extra-parliamentary political life, that it 
is far from covering its whole area, it does not of itself exhaust 
the outside pressure to which the M.P. has been subjected since 
the extension of the-strffrace-and the development of the Press 
and of means-of communication. Public opinion which weighs 
on the Member acts also through other channels, which are not 
always very distinct. Exposed on all sides, the M.P. feels 
every breeze, from whatever quarter it comes. An individual 














FOURTH CHAP.]| CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONEERING 501 





elector who writes in his own name to the Member to state his 
views on the questions of the day —and the case is not an 
uncommon one—is by no means considered as a negligible 
quantity by the M.P.; the latter will not throw his letter 
into the waste-paper basket. A fortiori any group, even if 
non-political in character and objects, commends itself to 
him, impresses his mind, and perhaps influences his conduct. 
Currents of opinions, as yet perhaps ill defined, do not pass 
over the constituency without an attentive Member trying to 
catch them and take them into consideration if need be. But 
however manifold and varied the influences brought to bear on 
the Member’s mind may be, that of the Caucus is the most pal- 
pable and the most considerable. Whoever has a vote to give 
can press claims on the M.P., but the Caucus is his principal 
creditor; it holds the first mortgage over this heavily involved 
debtor. 


FIFTH CHAPTER 
THE SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 


WHILE generally superintending the party in the constituency 
and wielding in it supreme authority, which aims even at its 
constitutional representative, the M. P., the Association is 
nevertheless not an autonomous power. It forms part of a vast 
federation which extends over the whole country and which 
rises on the base of the local Associations with a central 
Organization in London for its apex. The Federation lives 
by them, but the force which it derives from them gives an 
impulse to each of them. The ties which bind them to the 
central Organization, as well as the nature and effects of 
the impulse which they receive from it, will appear from the 
investigation of the working of the great central party Organi- 
zations on which we are about to enter. 


I 


The Liberal Federation — which we will examine the first, 
as the most developed type of the English caucus system — 
has preserved, with a few unimportant modifications, the 
machinery with which it had been provided from its start 
at Birmingham: the deliberative power is represented in 
the first instance by the Council, or general assembly of the 
delegates of all the federated Associations and of the Lib- 
eral Members of the House of Commons meeting once a 
year and constituting the parliament of the party; in the 
second place, by the General Committee, formed on the 
‘same basis, but composed of a smaller number of dele- 
gates, its principal duty being to appoint the executive 
committee, with the power of giving it instructions from 
time to time and of bringing before the federated Asso- 
ciations the political questions and measures on which it is 
desirable to unite the party. The Executive Committee, which 

502 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS _ 503 





manages the business of the Federation, is composed of some 
twenty members elected by the “General Committee,” plus 
the President and the Treasurer of the Federation chosen in 
the plenary assembly of the delegates. Side by side with the 
secretary’s office, which is the driving-wheel of the Federa- 
tion (and which up to the recent retirement of its celebrated 
founder, Mr. Schnadhorst, was the Federation personified), 
there is a Publication Department, already mentioned above. 
Established for superintending the making-up and the distribu- 
tion of the literature of the party, of late years it has developed 
to a considerable extent; while continuing to publish pamphlets 
and leaflets, it has become an office of political information 
for the active members of the party. It is a sort of literary 
arsenal which supplies them with ammunition, for defence as 
well as attack. The speakers of the party, including the can- 
didates, when at a loss for information or arguments, apply to 
the Publication Department, which refers them to the exist- 
ing publications, and especially to its monthly review The 
Liberal Magazine. Cleverly edited, this review gives, besides 
the political events of the day, extracts from speeches, analy- 
ses of Bills laid before Parliament, as well as of Blue Books 
and other official publications with figures and statistics; re- 
plies to questions of correspondents; comments on speeches 
and articles in the Tory Press, etc., all arranged with a view 
to the interests of the party. To arm its champions with 
more direct weapons, the Publication Department supplies 
the candidates of the Associations with the parliamentary 
record of every Member whom they may have to fight. These 
records, which state, in the case of all important divisions, if 
the Member has voted with the Ayes or the Noes or if he has 
been absent, also comment on the vote itself, dwelling especially 
on the pernicious nature of the vote of the rival party.’ At by- 
elections the Department, having more time at its disposal, 
gives the candidates of the party more extensive assistance; it 
provides them with quotations, sometimes of a compromising 

1The totals of the majority and the minority are accompanied by such 
reflections as the following: ‘‘ the minority (Tory) thus voting for giving an 
exceptional privilege to landowners’’; ‘‘ the minority (Tory) thus voting for 
crippling the powers of the Parish Council’’; or, ‘‘ the majority (Tory) thus 


voting against a simplification of the law much desired by many working- 
men.’’ 


504 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





nature, from the speeches of their political competitors ; it 
makes up with all speed “political literature” suited to the 
occasion and to the particular circumstances of the constitu- 
ency, etc. Occasionally the Publication Department gives the 
voters explanations and interpretations of new, important 
laws, in the form of publications or even of replies to private 
letters.? 

Besides its central committees and its London offices, the 
Federation has a dozen or so district agents, each placed at the 
head of a group of local Associations as supervisors and ad- 
visers on party organization. Being taken from among the 
secretaries of the local Associations, they have not enough 
authority nor leisure to wield any real influence. 

Legally speaking, this Organization does not extend beyond 
England proper and Wales. Scotland has its own independent 
organization, formed on national lines, of the same type as 
the English one: the local Associations are combined into 
a separate Federation, with the title of Scottish Liberal Asso- 
ciation. The strong particularist feeling of the Scotch has not 
yet allowed the National Liberal Federation to absorb the 
organization of Scotland, but the latter’s co-operation can 
always be depended on. 

Another provincial organization of the party established on 
a national basis is supplied by Wales; it forms, however, 
expressly a “divisional branch” of the National Liberal Fed- 
eration. In England proper, there are also three or four local 
federations covering portions of the territory of the party 
Organization, and established for political reasons peculiar 
to each of the regions in question. They are: The London 
Liberal and Radical Union, which includes the 62 electoral 
divisions of the metropolis and its suburbs; The Home Coun- 
ties Division, comprising the eight agricultural counties of 
southern England, known by the name of the Home Counties; 
and, lastly, The Midland Liberal Federation, recently created 
for laying siege to the impregnable fortress of Mr. Chamber- 
lain, who commands all the Midland counties. But all the 


1 This was done in the case of the Parishes Council Act. Having published 
a Parish Councillor’s Guide, the Publication Department invited readers to 
write to it for information, and this offer brought it more than two thousand 
letters. The Liberal Organization also got up district conferences for explain- 
ing the Act to the village delegates convened for this purpose. 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS _ 505 





federations just enumerated, being closely affiliated to the 
National Liberal Federation or even mere branches of it, fol- 
low its lead to such an extent that, so far as the study of the 
working of the central Organization of the Liberal party is 
concerned, they can all be brought under the N. L. F. with 
its office in Parliament Street. 


II 


The Federation has undertaken, it will be remembered, to 
serve as an extra-parliamentary organ of public opinion, to 
give it a voice and thereby force it upon the constituted author- 
ities. Flowing from the electorate, the currents of opinion 
are to gather, in the first instance, within the local Associa- 
tions representative of the party, to be finally united in the 
central Organization which is representative in its turn of the 
local Associations. While taking upon itself the second of 
these two successive operations, in the formation of public 
opinion, the central Organization has to help to bring about 
the first so far as is necessary for the better attainment of its 
object. In consequence, the Federation assumes a double 
part — local and national. 

Acting locally, the central Caucus points out to the Associa- 
tions, with the authority attaching to its position and to the 
experience of its staff, the best modes of action, offers advice 
on their formation, on improvements to be introduced into 
the machinery ; it gives opinions on the points of electoral 
law, so complicated in England, which crop up in the 
practice of the Associations. It does not wait for the local 
Associations to apply for its services, it forestalls them, 
it stimulates their zeal for the good of the cause; it con- 
stantly draws their attention to the necessity of being ready 
for the electoral contest, to the paramount importance of 
registration work, and to the need of unremitting applica- 
tion to the propaganda of the party by means of meetings, 
lectures, and distribution of literature. If the local Associa- 
tions were full of energy, the intervention of the central 
Organization would be without pretext or object; but a good 
many Associations are deficient in ardour and even display an 
apathy which ill befits militant bodies. Some of them require 


506 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruarrp part 





to be constantly pushed on and stirred up; by their inaction 
they justify, from the standpoint of the interests of the party, 
the intervention of the grand Caucus, and drive it into exchang- 
ing the part of friendly adviser for that of regular monitor. 
It thrusts itself also on the other Associations, who are full 
of zeal, but often at a loss for means of action. The grand 
Caucus provides them with these in the form of speakers, 
lecturers, and literature, or even, on rarer occasions, money 
subsidies. There are but few constituencies who can supply 
all their own wants of this kind. The local speakers are not 
always numerous; anyhow, they have not always prestige 
enough to please the audience. Its critical taste requires 
speakers from London, real M.P.’s, at the very least. The 
central Caucus procures them for the local Association at its 
big meetings. It also supplies it, either gratuitously or more 
often at a reduced price, with the pamphlets and leaflets which 
form the literary stock-in-trade of the propaganda. It has a 
staff of lecturers at its disposal; it despatches the travelling 
vans over the country. Lastly, in case of need, the Caucus 
can even get the Association a parliamentary candidate, and, 
if the latter cannot afford to pay the election expenses, fur- 
nishes him, perhaps, with the sinews of war. 

These services which the central Organization renders or is 
able to render to the local Associations only transform them 
with greater certainty into satellites of the big Caucus. 
It is the same when they are under no direct obligations to it, 
for knowing it to be up above watching over the interests of 
the party, they become imbued with a feeling of gratitude and 
of confidence towards it, which is only enhanced by the inertia 
peculiar to the majority of those whose existence is passed 
within a limited horizon. Thus, without legal subordination 
of any kind, there arise between the central Organization and 
the local caucus relations of authority and of deference. 

The intervention of the central Organization in the choice 
of the candidates takes place at the present time under con- 
ditions differing somewhat from those of the old days, when 
the organization of the party, presided over by the Whip, kept 
a sort of depot of candidates. Now, as with the development 
and extension of the political market, direct relations between 
candidates and constituencies have grown up, London is not 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS — 507 





so often applied to for this article. Nevertheless, the part of 
intermediary played by the central Organization is still very 
important; one candidate out of two is recommended from 
London. The qualities which go to make a good candidate 
are so numerous, and are complicated by so many local con- 
ditions, that they are not easily found on the spot. When the 
party’s chances of success are not very great, and there are no 
local amateurs —as the state of affairs is only too well known 
—ready to engage in a difficult or even desperate contest, the 
good offices of the central Organization are invariably ap- 
pealed to. ‘The rivalries and the local competitions which 
prevent the Association from agreeing on a candidate also 
demand the intervention of head-quarters, which assume the 
part of arbitrator. 

It is of course difficult for the interposition of the London 
organizers to confine itself modestly to these duties. In- 
stinctively inclined to extend the sphere of their action and 
of their influence, they try to go beyond the limits defined 
by the need of assistance felt by the local Associations. They 
are lavish of their advice, abound in exhortations, despatch 
one circular after another. But it is especially in the choice 
of the candidates that their anxiety to run the party manifests 
itself. The central Organization always has candidates to 
provide for, men who have rendered or are capable of render- 
ing services of one kind or another to the party, and it seizes 
every opportunity of introducing them into the constituencies. 
It has no legal power, so to speak, to thrust them on it, for 
in law the Associations are independent; but by dint of clever 
manceuvring, of wire-pulling, it often succeeds in doing so. 
Keeping up a close connection with the local wire-pullers, it 
“suggests ” an “excellent candidate ” to them and makes them 
accept him. There have even been, it appears, cases in which 
the central Organization has brought regular pressure to bear 
to obtain the assent of the influential personages in the Asso- 
ciation. Among the candidates provided for by the wire- 
pullers of the central Organization, and, for the most part, 
strangers to the constituencies whose interests they are called 
on to represent, there are eminent men who cut a very decent 
figure in the House in the discussion of general questions and 
who certainly contribute to the reputation of Parliament. But 


508 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp Part 





far more often the central Organization brings into the House 
mediocrities whose sole qualifications are their wealth and 
their willingness to yield a blind obedience to the party and 
its leader. Amply provided with the sinews of war, they are 
not only formidable opponents for their competitors on the 
other side, but they can contribute handsomely to the expenses 
of the central Organization. 

The latter always stands in great need of this, for its regular 
resources which figure in its official accounts are extremely 
limited: each affiliated Association has to pay an annual sub- 
scription of a guinea; in addition the official budget of the 
Whip contains a certain number of subscribers at four guineas 
ayear. The total of these receipts barely comes up to seven 
or eight thousand pounds; again, a good many payments made 
to these funds are only nominal, because certain Associations 
receive from the central Organization subsidies several times 
greater than their subscription. In any event, the regular 
receipts, while perhaps sufficient for defraying current ex- 
penses, can never be adequate for intervening with effect in 
the elections. It being impossible to provide all the constitu- 
encies with rich candidates, the Organization has to contribute 
more or less heavy sums to the election expenditure of the can- 
didates who are poor, but whom it does not like to part with, 
either because they have special chances of carrying hostile 
positions and of swelling the ranks of the party in the House, 
or because they can be useful to it by their talent or their 
reputation, or, again, because they represent more or less un- 
common types, as, for instance, “Labour Members.” Conse- 
quently, the electioneering fund of the central Organization 
must necessarily be a large one, and it is so more or less. It 
is impossible to form an idea of its real resources, for both 
receipts and expenditure are kept a strict secret, into which 
a handful of persons only are initiated. It consists of dona- 
tions made by the candidates as well as the M. P.’s and other 
wealthy supporters, of whom many are more or less interested 
in establishing claims on the head organizers of the party. 
The Members do not require the assistance of the cen- 
tral Organization as much as the candidates, and the private 
patrons of the party have no need of it; but the Organization 
is able to procure titles for all of them when the party is in 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS _ 509 





power, a knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage. There 
is no Radical in England so austere as to be able to resist the 
temptation of a handle to his name, no more than his French 
congener can withstand the seduction of a red ribbon. If the 
generous zealot of the party does not himself care, or per- 
suades himself that he does not care, for the prefix of “Sir” 
to his Christian name, his wife is always dreaming of exchang- 
ing the homely appellation of “ Mrs.” for the two magic sylla- 
bles of “ Lady.” 

While interfering often more than is necessary with the 
local Associations, the central Organization does not exert 
itself enough for some of them. Not being adapted for 
missionary work, but rather for pursuing the immediate 
and tangible success of the party, it is almost obliged to 
neglect the constituencies in which the chances of the party 
are nil or indifferent. It is unable to find candidates for 
these constituencies or speakers available for addressing their 
meetings. Leaving them to stew in the juice of their politi- 
cal infidelity, it directs all its efforts to the constituencies 
where the enemy can be dislodged or his majority, at all events, 
pulled down enough to justify raising a shout of “moral vic- 
tory ” and impress the crowd by the noise made about it. 


ELE 


Next to the assistance given in organizing the constituencies 
for the contest, the second and principal duty of the central 
Caucus consists in ensuring the co-operation and the unity of 
action of all the contingents of the party. The Caucus under- 
takes to produce and establish these by means of its federative 
machinery. For this purpose it convenes the delegates of the 
affiliated Associations to periodical meetings, in which they 
have to settle the programme of the party, to recast it, to 
complete it, to express their views on the way in which the 
government of the country is being conducted; in a word, to 
take up a decided line with regard to everything that concerns 
the affairs of the State. These national assizes of the party are 
held once a year— sometimes in one, sometimes in another, 
provincial town. The meeting alone, independently of the de- 
cisions, important or not, which are taken, is a great event 


510 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rump part 





in the organized party life; it is the “demonstration” to 
which it treats itself and the country. It attracts not only a 
very large number of persons flocking from all parts of Eng- 
land, as many as two thousand delegates, but the “biggest 
guns” which the party can command. The great leaders of 
the party — when it is in power, the Prime Minister, accom- 
panied by some members of the Cabinet — do not fail to en- 
hance the importance of these solemnities with their presence 
and to procure their adherents the opportunity of affirming 
their union in personal loyalty before it is vouchsafed to them 
to realize it in the domain of principles and of ideas. In this 
last sphere an agreement is arrived at by means of votes, and 
in no way by discussion. The meetings of the delegates, sup- 
posed to form a parliament of the party, are not deliberative 
assemblies; they simply register, ratify decisions taken out- 
side them. The Executive Committee brings up the resolu- 
tions to be voted, which it drafts of its own authority after 
having ascertained the views of the local Associations. At 
the approach of the annual meeting the Committee invites 
them to communicate their wishes, to be used as a basis of 
the resolutions which it will lay before the general assembly, 
where they have only to be “adopted or rejected.” The fed- 
erative Associations cannot put any definite proposal on the 
list of business, and the assembled delegates have still less 
power of displaying any initiative. In the view of the leaders 
of the Caucus the sole object of the meetings of the dele- 
gates is to proclaim to the country what the party is agreed 
on. “It is not,” explained the President of the Federation, 
at the famous meeting at Newcastle, — “and I wish to be par- 
ticularly clear upon this point—a meeting for the discus- 
sion of subjects;” the delegates, he declared, attend not to 
express their opinions, but to ascertain what are the ques- 
tions which the Liberal leader can take up with the certainty 
of finding the Liberal party united as one man behind him ; 
the subjects for discussion have been sufficiently elucidated 
beforehand in meetings of smaller size and consequently 
better suited for debating purposes, such as the General 
Committee, not to mention the local Associations.! 

1 Proceedings of the National Liberal Federation, 1891, pp. 42, 43. The 


same declarations have been repeated on several occasions by the President of 
the Federation. 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 611 





This system of preliminary discussion, whatever may be its 
intrinsic value, has not worked in practice, because the Gen- 
eral Committee is rarely convened, because its list of business 
is settled by the Executive Committee, and because the local 
Associations which send their delegates to the General Com- 
mittee are not informed of the matters which are to come 
before it.1 Similarly, the annual consultation of the local. 
Associations to which the Executive Committee applies itself, 
and by which it pretends to be guided in drafting the resolutions 
which it submits to the big assembly of delegates, is not sub- 
ject to the free control of the party: the replies of the Associ- 
ations are not published; they are analyzed, classified, and 
interpreted in private; the power of the Executive Commit- 
tee which undertakes this duty is therefore a discretionary 
one. And it is not even exercised with complete independence 
of mind. Owing to the constant preoccupation about the 
questions which the “ Liberal leader will be able to deal with,” 
the Committee is naturally inclined to eliminate the opinions, 
the views, the aspirations which are perhaps making way in the 
country, but which do not fit into the groove of the leaders. 
Hence the independent Liberals continue, with yearly increas- 
ing vehemence, to set forth the grievances against the central 
Organization which have been already referred to ?; to wit, that 
the Liberal Federation, far from being the free organ of the 
opinion of the country, is dragged at the heels of “ official 
Liberalism” ; that it simply registers decisions taken by a 
handful of wire-pullers in Parliament Street; that all the 
resolutions are cut-and-dried ; that discussion is stifled at the 
annual meetings. 

The reproach which is continually levelled in certain ad- 
vanced liberal circles against the Federation of being a creature 
of “ official Liberalism,” which they picture to themselves in the 
darkest light, rests on the fact that it is formally yoked with 
the factotums of the “official leaders.” In fact, the central 
Organization has two sign-boards with the names of two differ- 
ent masters. It will be remembered that in the course of the 
crisis of 1886 the popular Organization of the party, having 


1 Since 1896, the list of business of the General Committee has been communi- 
cated to the local Associations a short time before it meets. 
2 See above, Vol. I, pp. 303, 304. 


512 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





separated from Mr. Chamberlain, entered into a coalition with 
the leadership represented by Mr. Gladstone and the other 
official chiefs, and that this alliance, which brought the Cau- 
cus an accession of strength and prestige, was cemented by a 
material arrangement which placed the office of the leaders, 
managed by the Whip of the party and known by the name of 
Central Liberal Association, and the office of the central Cau- 
cus, under one and the same general secretary. The inde- 
pendent existence of both organizations, which has lasted up 
to the present day, is in reality a fiction (I have therefore in 
describing them used the single term of central Organiza- 
tion). Living under the same roof, they engage in the same 
work, under the same inspiration, not only in concert but 
identically. The splitting of the official title only serves to 
save appearances for acting now in the name of the one, now 
in that of the other, and also for procuring certain funds more 
easily. When it is necessary to work on popular feeling, 
to bring democratic susceptibilities, passion, or duty, into 
play, or when the routine of the organization proper is con- 
cerned, then the representative Federation signs the circu- 
lars or the instructions addressed to the local Associations. 
When it is a question of “suggestions,” which are quite out- 
side the province of the Federation, or of cases ad hominem, 
in a word, of matters which cannot bear the full light of pub- 
licity, then the central Association is supposed to speak or 
exert itself. Thus the candidatures are hatched under the 
wing of the central Association. It is that body which dis- 
tributes the election subsidies to the champions of the party. 
It also receives the secret-service money of the party, without 
rendering an account of it, whereas the Federation has its 
modest budget of receipts and expenditure audited by char- 
tered accountants, and publishes the figures of it down to the 
pence column. Being indivisible in the public mind, which 
naturally takes its cue more from the real facts than from 
formal distinctions, the influence wielded by this Organization 
is all the stronger for it: having two strings to its bow, it car- 
ries, without their being aware of it, one set by the authority 
of the leadership, and the other, which is refractory to it, by 
the prestige of the democratic Organization. 

It is evident that from the standpoint of electioneering pre~- 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 513 





occupations the party has every reason to be satisfied with this 
arrangement; that, events having brought about the existence 
‘within it of two central organizations, both possessing their 
own sphere in the political world, it is better that they should 
be united than that each should go its own way. But it is no 
less clear that it is difficult for two organizations, differing 
in origin and temperament, having to act through the same 
central organ, to be each perfectly free in its movements. 
Hence in practice the confusion of the relations between the 
“official leaders” and the popular Organization shows itself 
in a sort of irregular see-saw: at one time, as we have seen, 
it is the leaders who influence the acts of the Federation, at 
another it is the Federation which weighs upon the conduct 
of the leaders. 

However this may be, the opposition to the present state of 
things in the central Organization is growing stronger, and 
has just invaded the precincts of the Federation itself. Em- 
boldened or warned by the defeat of the party at the general 
election of 1895, voices were raised within it demanding that 
“the machinery of the Federation should be made more repre- 
sentative and more democratic.”? ‘To meet these requirements, 
some amendments were introduced into the statutes, with the 
object of making the committees and the Council of the Fed- 
eration a little more accessible to the light of public opinion, 
but the practical import of these concessions can only be felt 
as time goes on. In any event, they have not succeeded in 
silencing criticism or allaying misgivings even among official 
representatives of the local Associations, who, at the last 
annual meeting of the Federation (in 1897), made declarations 
to this effect, the moderate terms of which gave them still 
greater significance. The attempts in the direction of getting 
the Executive Committee chosen by the general vote of the 
delegates, and of ensuring full liberty of discussion for all 


1 Proceedings of the annual meeting of the N. L. F., 1896, p. 32. 

2« . , it was apparent that there was a certain desire for change in the 
ranks of the party and it was desirable that the Executive Committee should 
consider whether it was not possible to make that assembly the real Parlia- 
ment of the Liberal party. ... There was a feeling through the country 
that the Federated Associations had not so much opportunity as they ought 
to have to bring matters before these gatherings”? (Proceedings, 1897, pp. 
78,79). 

VOL, I—2 L 


514 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





proposals emanating from the local Associations, have up to 
the present been foiled by the opposition of the committees 
of the Federation, whose position is still a preponderant one. — 


‘hi 


This absolute power of the heads of the Federation, and their 
allies the “official leaders,” over the opinion of the party is 
nevertheless considerably impaired in practice, for this twofold 
and elementary reason, —that opinion can never be usurped 
or held down. When once it has reached years of discre- 
tion, opinion cannot be coerced; it surrenders, it yields to 
seduction, it may be caught, it may be circumvented, but 
always as an openly or tacitly consenting party. On the other 
hand, opinion is anything but steadfast and unchangeable. 
Headstrong and fickle by nature, opinion cannot be brought 
to take any course but that for which it has inclinations, at 
all events of a latent kind. No doubt these tendencies, being 
of the moral order, can be and are fashioned or modified by 
the force of the human will acting on men’s minds. The 
different intellectual standard and political energy of the dif- 
ferent societies offer a varying resistance to this action from 
outside, but none escape it, while again opinion which has at- 
tained to some consciousness of its strength is never absolutely 
passive. It always obeys various impulses; at one time 
spontaneous, at another external and more or less artificial. 
It is at once a capricious despot and a docile slave. Its 
mouthpieces and its guides, in order to lead it, are under 
the necessity of following it; they give it the impulse while 
receiving it. 

The present state of English political society implies this 
twofold play of forces in a special degree. As we have 
already realized, with the great mass of the electorate inde- 
pendence of mind is far from being the predominant qual- 
ity; an Englishman is always ready to look up to “superior” 
men who impress him for various reasons. But we have 
also seen the progress which the democratic spirit had made 
in the wake of the political and industrial transformation; we 
have been able to note that if this spirit has not yet made 
serious inroads on the national character, it has none the less 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 515 





profoundly affected the political relations, by imparting to 
them an aspect of equality which speedily demanded formal 
recognition, beyond the limits of the Constitution. This 
was precisely the import of the movement of the Caucus. 
If, therefore, the passiveness of the majority leaves the men 
who have taken the lead in the Organization, the wire-pullers, 
considerable scope in the management of the party, they are 
no less compelled, as regards the use to be made of their 
power, to feel every inch of the ground on which they stand, 
to regulate their pace by the mood of their adherents. Con- 
sequently they watch the state of feeling in the ranks of the 
party; they follow the play of opinion to catch its decisive 
movements; they scrutinize, they appraise, they gauge, the 
needs and the aspirations which agitate the country, to enlist 
them in the service of the party, if need be, and to introduce 
them into its “platform.’’ Amid the incessant fluctuation of 
opinion they are careful to distinguish the currents which may 
bring an accession of strength to their side, to note the claims 
which may win adherents for the party which is the first to 
admit them or which has sympathized with them in any way. 
This ultimate result is the invariable criterion which guides the 
wire-pullers. The genuine solicitude for the public interest, 
of which they are by no means devoid, inevitably clashes in 
their mind with the anxiety inspired by the next general 
election: being in charge of an Organization, they consider 
every political problem not only in its intrinsic significance, 
but also and above all from the electioneering standpoint. In 
this delicate task which devolves on the wire-pullers, the ap- 
paratus of the Associations with their successive delegations 
is but of little use tothem. The clear-sightedness, the strate- 
gic divination and conception, and the resolution of the big 
wire-pullers point out to them their line of conduct in a far 
more unerring and peremptory way than do the Associations 
whose democratic forms and pretensions they use only as a 
screen for their operations. It is their own initiative, their 
perhaps intuitive penetration, that suddenly rouses a question 
which was slumbering in the political conscience of the nation, 
and makes an electioneering “cry” of it. It is their fertile 
brain that conceives and puts into execution tactical move- 
ments which can carry votes wholesale, by binding to the 


516 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rnirp part 





party a whole social group, a whole “interest,” through an 
unexpected stroke which becomes a master-stroke when it 
succeeds; as, for instance, the convening in the capital of the 
kingdom, under the auspices of the party, of a congress of 
rural labourers with claims and grievances to urge and also 
votes to dispose of. 

While following the trend of opinion, the big wire-pullers 
nevertheless depart from it, sometimes unconsciously and 
sometimes consciously. In the first instance, because it is 
not possible to coincide with it exactly, its path being any- 
thing but clear and visible. The wire-pullers who follow it 
are inevitably obliged to feel their way to a certain extent, 
and are liable to deviate from the line in one direction or 
another. Necessarily they complete of themselves the im- 
perfect data supplied by information, without, perhaps, being 
aware of it. But, on the other hand, they anticipate opinion 
deliberately; sometimes the public interest, as they understand 
it, or considerations of party strategy, bid them introduce into 
the policy of the party elements which have not yet found their 
way into its conscience or have not yet taken root there. Be- 
sides, with the great majority of voters nothing ever happens 
to be implanted in the mind at the right moment, one is 
always too soon for them. And yet, in all these cases, what- 
ever may be the cause of the divergence between the real state 
of the public mind and the policy decided on by the wire- 
pullers, success is impossible without the assent or complicity 
of opinion: if they do not meet with sufficient encouragement 
from it, the problems or solutions put forward may damage 
rather than promote the unity and cohesion of the party, and 
even throw its ranks into confusion. ‘To secure the agreement 
that is lacking, or at least to present a semblance of it, the 
central Organization undertakes, when time allows, what is 
called the education of opinion on the matter. This process 
consists of starting an agitation on the points in question. 
The means of action are the ordinary ones of the propaganda 
of the Caucus, only worked at higher pressure. The Organiza- 
tion, which is a fighting machine, likes to hit hard, and, above 
all, to make a great noise so as to deeply impress the public 
mind and imagination. It uses, on the one hand, the ma- 
chinery of the local Associations by making them hold simul- 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 517 





taneous meetings, vote resolutions, ete.; on the other hand, 
it acts by itself in addressing the public directly; it launches 
manifestoes; organizes great demonstrations with the fore- 
most speakers of the party as chief performers, or stump tours 
of the great leaders of whom it constitutes itself in a way 
the showman; convenes special conferences of the local dele- 
gates, etc. —all this irrespective of the political literature 
devoted to the questions at issue and distributed in the usual 
fashion. 

The agitation thus carried on from above does not revolve 
solely around great problems, of an organic nature so to speak, 
which constitute the platform of the party. While establish- 
ing unity by a common programme, in which are represented 
the various fractions of Liberal opinion with their claims to be 
realized at a more or less early date, the central Organization 
endeavours to produce the same unanimity in the party, and by 
the same means, on the questions of the moment, on the events 
of the day. Standing on high ground and observing the 
march of affairs, the Organization mounts guard over the in- 
terests of the party. It watches all the doings of the rival 
party and, on the first serious incident, gives the alarm for 
raising its adherents throughout the country. 


Vv 


By strengthening and bringing into prominence the una- 
nimity of political sentiments within the party, the Organiza- 
tion tends ipso facto to exert pressure on the conduct of those 
who are outside its ranks, on the body of the voters in general, 
and eventually on Parliament, on the majority and the Op- 
position with their respective leaders. Indeed, the action is 
the same, it is indivisible, and it is only logically that it can 
be decomposed according to its objectives, which are mani- 
fold. For it is the property of opinion to grow like an 
avalanche. But besides the first impulse which starts it, 
there is, with regard to the human substance, another factor, 
to wit, the conscience of the living beings who constitute it 
and who require to see, to feel the mass gather and ac- 
cumulate before they adhere to it. The sole object of the 
agitation carried on by the Organization is to demonstrate 


518 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurirp part 





this over and over again; that is to say, to make the nu- 
merical strength of the party felt by all those whom it has 
in view, beginning with its native surroundings which it 
looks on as its private preserves, and ending with the upper 
spheres of the rulers and the legislators. In proportion 
as it unfolds itself, the demonstration gradually increases 
in volume and effectiveness. To the factors which are striv- 
ing on the spot, in each constituency, to close up the ranks of 
the party and to make the “enthusiasm” in them more intense 
and more conspicuous, the central Organization, extending its 
operations above the whole country, brings its own prestige 
with that of the leaders of the party who publicly connect 
themselves with it. Cleverly worked up with the leaven of 
“enthusiasm,” the various manifestations, inspired or directed 
by the head wire-pullers and started in several places at once 
or on a very large scale, are calculated to rouse the great 
mass of the indifferent and the neutral throughout the country. 
The appearance of a display of strength, obtained mainly by 
the noise produced, impresses the waverers, the apathetic, the 
men with no convictions, the cowards who always side with 
the strong, and even intimidates avowed opponents. If these 
latter are but rarely converted, they can be easily made to 
stand aside or slacken their speed under the bewildering din 
of invective and threats of the popular verdict, which often 
nobody can state or foresee. The smaller the power of clearly 
distinguishing the voice of the people to which everybody ap- 
peals, the greater the readiness to be influenced by the hubbub 
amid which it is supposed to speak. The great point is to 
make the uproar as loud as possible. For producing this 
effect the caucuses are invaluable. From the standpoint of 
the London wire-pullers that is the raison d’étre of the Asso- 
ciations scattered over the face of the country. Being accus- 
tomed to obey the impulse of the central Organization, they 
answer it as an echo answers the voice. The wire-pullers can 
thus open fire along the whole line at a given moment; they 
“slip” the Associations to produce “national protests,” “na- 
tional declarations,” ‘popular mandates.” The Associations 
need not even exert their literary powers; often they receive 
from head-quarters the actual draft of the resolution about to 
be voted with enthusiasm. In avery short time the post or 


FIFTH cHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 519 





the telegraph will have brought back, in a lump, the resolu- 
tions voted, and then it can be said, in a tone of triumph, that 
the “country has spoken,” that the “great voice of the nation 
has given forth no uncertain sound.” 

Opinion is thus turned out at will by the parties in propor- 
tion to the requirements of the war which they wage on each 
other, and of which it is the sinews. In the days when power 
was gained and kept by material force alone, it was the old- 
fashioned sinews of war which supplied it; and when cash 
ran short it was provided either by debasing the currency, 
or, later on, as civilization progressed, by issuing paper 
money. Nowadays, mercenary troops are powerless to uphold 
a government. Swiss guards can no longer protect a régime. 
It is by the play of opinion that policies are settled. But 
here again we find the leaders trying to obtain the new 
sinews of war as expeditiously as the old: they manufacture 
opinion just as paper money was issued, only by a much 
improved process. The Caucus with its branch establish- 
ments is the bank of issue of this new paper currency, 
which supplements and reinforces the operations of the other 
modern circulating medium of moral energy, the Press. The 
success of these issues is ensured by the very conditions 
governing the formation and play of opinion, in which reality 
and convention interpenetrate, engender each other, and 
blend into one another. By the mere fact of proclaiming 
views, whether genuine or not, you create them in others, nay 
more, you express the opinions of a number of people who 
have none at all and who hasten to acknowledge them as their 
own directly they are put forward. The source, the real 
nature and the value of the mass of floating views may not be 
discerned, at least not by the common herd. However, to 
keep to the language of finance, when put in circulation they 
are like the paper currency supposed to represent specie. 
The sole point is to get as much of it as possible taken up, in 
other words, to make the strongest impression on the crowd. 
True, the limits of the operation are marked by the relation 
in which the real, genuine opinion stands to the artificial, 
machine-made element which the aforesaid manifestations 
present. If the divergence between these is too great, the 
agitation started may fall flat and the wire-pullers perceive 


520 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





when too late that they had presumed too much on machinery, 
or, to revert to the currency metaphor, that they had made a 
larger issue than the market could stand in spite of its power 
and habit of absorption. 

Subject to this reservation, the machine-made manifestations 
of opinion always ‘take effect more or less. And what is 
more remarkable, they impose not only on the mob but on 
the party chiefs, so much so that the latter, Ministers or 
leaders of the Opposition, seek in them a stimulant for their 
energy and their will. Often, to “strengthen the hands of 
the leaders,” the wire-pullers set the machine of the Organiza- 
tion in motion, and produce manifestations in their favour. 
At a signal given from head-quarters the addresses and resolu- 
tions voted by the local caucuses begin to pour in, all protest- 
ing their “unabated confidence,” their “unswerving loyalty,” 
their strong condemnation of their opponents, and urging the 
leaders to persevere in the course adopted, to pursue the enemy 
into his last intrenchments, etc. At the first blush it seems 
odd that the leaders, who know what’s what, should attach 
importance to factitious demonstrations. If there is no logi- 
cal reason why they should be impressed with manifestations 
brought about by themselves, there are psychological reasons, 
residing in the sensitiveness peculiar to men who are habitu- 
ally before the public. It is a well-known fact that several 
artists who have earned undying fame on the stage had an 
imperious need of the accompaniment of the claque to keep 
up to their usual level of performance. In the present con- 
ditions of political life politicians, who are not always great 
artists, are still less able to dispense with this sort of. applause. 
The organization of the Caucus supplies it, in this instance 
again concurrently with the Press of the party. The nervous 
reaction which it produces in the party leaders is, in their 
case especially, the effect of the play of the machinery of 
opinion, already repeatedly noticed; that is to say, of the 
branching off of the feelings to which its manifestation gives 
rise. Aroused at the instigation of the leaders, these feel- 
ings to a considerable extent lose their real character in their 
conscience as soon as they break forth. It is no longer the 
applause of the claque that the chiefs think they hear, but the 
beating of hearts which throb spontaneously and freely in uni- 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS 521 





son with their own. In all sincerity they become, in a great 
measure, dupes of the illusion which they had helped to create, 
under the influence of the same reflex movement which runs 
through the whole of opinion, presenting, in the caprice and 
confusion of its undulations, its sole, unvarying phenomenon, 
perhaps its only rule, and which, after having swayed the mul- 
titude hither and thither, achieves its greatest triumph in the 
mind of the leaders. It is then evident that the greater the 
ease with which the leaders can set in motion the apparent play 
of opinion, the more easily is this psychological effect with all 
its illusory and chance character produced in themselves. The 
machinery of the Caucus has supplied them with both facilities 
in an unprecedented degree; for in endeavouring to enclose and 
dam up the vague and floating elements of opinion, it seemed 
to provide a means of gauging it without possibility of error. 
The history of the Caucus in England has shown us, however, 
that mistakes might none the less occur. It will be remem- 
bered how Mr. Gladstone learnt this to his cost, when he con- 
cluded from the noisy manifestations of the caucuses in favour 
of his Home-Rule Bill of 1886 that the whole of Liberal opin- 
ion in the country was on his side. 

The pressure which the Organization exerts by bringing the 
force of opinion, which it is supposed to command, to bear on 
the great mass of the party, then on the body of the electors 
in general, and lastly on the leaders, attains its climax when 
it reaches the M.P.’s, the Members of Parliament belonging 
to the party. More or less indirect and moral up to that 
point, it here becomes, one may say, immediate and almost 
mechanical. The mode of procedure is the same: the central 
Organization in important cases sets the local Associations, 
the respective caucuses, on the M.P.’s. Singled out from 
the multitude, the Member finds himself alone with his 
Association and made to stand and deliver, so to speak. 
Holding his parliamentary mandate from it in the first in- 
stance, he is driven, by a feeling of self-preservation, more 
or less automatically into obedience, when at a signal from 
head-quarters the “hundreds” or their committee direct him 
to take one side or the other in the House, to vote for this or 
that. It will be remembered how successful the Caucus has 
been, on many occasions, in bringing refractory or wavering 


522 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rnirp part 





Members to reason. Completely identified with the official 
leaders, the Organization exerts this pressure for their benefit, 
sometimes on the initiative of the Whip, both as regards the 
whole body of Members belonging to the party, in serious 
emergencies, as well as the individual M.P.’s whose loyalty 
has fallen off. It helps in this way to maintain discipline in 
the parliamentary party, “to keep them in order,” that is to 
say, obedient to the leader, and gives the last touch to the 
unity of the party, which it constantly keeps in view from one 
end of it to the other, beginning with the lowest grade, the 
ward or the polling section in the electoral Division. 

Developed and wielded behind the scenes, and being a sort 
of occult power, the influence of the central Organization is 
naturally not acknowledged to its full extent by those con- 
cerned; and sometimes even in spheres other than those of 
the wire-pullers there is a proneness to deny or underrate it. 
Some, whose personal position in politics protects them from 
all conflict or friction with the Organization of the party and 
keeps them at a distance from the wire-pulling manipulations, 
sincerely believe its influence to be less troublesome and less 
encroaching than it really is; whereas others put it below its 
real value from the feeling of lofty disdain by which people, 
more or less consciously, take revenge on the power of rank, 
of influence or wealth, which must, however, be bowed to 
when met face to face, and perhaps obsequiously. The truth 
is, that up to a very recent period the Federation profited 
largely by the unexampled influence of Mr. Gladstone’s leader- 
ship, as a member of the great firm in which the illustrious 
chief was the senior partner; and that, on the other hand, 
considered in itself, the Organization reposes on an “unstable 
equilibrium,” due to its having been in existence for so short a 
time, and, above all, to the varying source of its influence, 
which proceeds from the acquiescence of opinion. But as long 
as this is dammed up in the local Associations, the Federation 
is pretty well able to regulate the flow of it, at least in times 
of calm. In the hour of storm, when the national mind is 
deeply moved in a particular direction, the Federation would 
be powerless to breast the current, all its wire-pulling, all its 
prestige with the caucuses would be exerted in vain. 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS — 523 





VI 


Almost all that has just been said about the central Organi- 
zation of the Liberal party is equally true of that of the Con- 
servative party. There are, however, considerable differences 
both in form and substance. The machinery of the central 
Tory Organization is constructed on the same type: first 
of all, a federal assembly and a federal council which repre- 
sent the federated local Associations, to wit, the National 
Union of Constitutional and Conservative Associations. The 
former meets once a year; the other is permanent. Both of 
them emanate, by election and through successive delegations, 
from Conservative opinion in the country as embodied in the 
Associations and the clubs, beginning with those of the ward 
or the polling section. But side by side with these popular 
powers there is another which is not elective and which holds 
a very important position in the head-quarters of the party, 
as is the case in the Liberal Organization. An analogous his- 
torical process has brought about the same dualism in both 
organizations. As long as the parliamentary leaders of the 
Conservative party held undivided sway. in the country, they 
ruled it from London, from the Central Conservative Office 
managed under their authority by the Whip. When the 
democratic principle penetrated the provincial organizations 
and the latter were reformed or established, at the instigation 
of Lord Randolph Churchill and his friends, on an elective 
and popular basis, their central organ, the National Union, 
arose as a rival to the Central Conservative Office and disputed 
the management of the party with it. It will be remembered 
that the struggle between the leaders and the democrats did 
not produce a decisive victory for either, and ended by a com- 
promise which divided the influence in the government of the 
party outside Parliament between them. The policy of the 
party remained in the hands of the leaders, while local organi- 
zation had devolved on the popular Associations with their 
Union. The power formally conceded to the latter and up- 
held by the democratic tendencies of the large provincial towns, 
soon received, however, a formidable blow, caused by the fall 
of Lord Randolph Churchill. His split with Lord Salisbury 
and his colleagues on the Treasury Bench having turned to the 


524 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





advantage of the leaders, the star of the National Union paled 
and the Central Conservative Office resumed the reins of the 
government of the party with renewed vigour. 

Following the arrangement adopted in the Liberal head- 
quarters, both organizations have been united in the person of 
a common general secretary; the head of the Central Office, 
known in ordinary parlance as the “chief Conservative agent,” 
is honorary secretary of the Federation of Conservative Associ- 
ations. But there has not grown up such a close connection 
between the two as that which exists in the Liberal Organiza- 
tion between the popular Federation and the leaders. The 
Tory leadership is still in the hands of supercilious aristocrats 
who dislike identifying themselves completely, even in appear- 
ance only, lowering themselves (to use an expression which 
reflects their sentiments) with the popular Organization. If 
they find themselves obliged to adopt a democratic policy, in 
order to meet the Radical competition, they indemnify them- 
selves somewhat by their behaviour to the members of their 
party. They can largely afford it, considering the prestige 
which the leadership still enjoys in Tory circles. True, they 
are no longer able to disregard the new forces embodied in the 
caucuses of their party; they are bound to take them into seri- 
ous account, even in matters of form, but after all their own 
strength still weighs heavy in the balance. ‘The great leaders 
of the party and their agents of the Central Office are there- 
fore only too ready to regard the Union with a certain con- 
descension, as a not precisely subordinate but more or less 
auxiliary organization, good for helping in the rough work | 
of organization proper. All the more important business 
is transacted in the Central Office alone, the representatives 
of the Union not being initiated into or consulted upon it. It 
is there that the candidatures are concocted, that decisions are 
taken on the personal rivalries and the divergences which arise 
here and there within the party, always, however, subject to 
the submissive inclinations of the constituencies concerned, 
where the new spirit of independence, developed with the popu- 
lar Associations, assigns limits to intervention from above.! It 


1 The local resistance offered to head-quarters sometimes breaks out with a 
fierceness of which the old Tory leaders of the pre-caucus period, very recent, 
however, could not have formed an idea. An eloquent example of this was 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS _— 525 





is also the Central Office which receives the secret funds and 
spends them in the same way as its counterpart on the Liberal 
side. There is, however, a perceptible difference between the 
tendencies which inspire and direct the two head-quarters in 
their operations. In the selection of candidates whom it sup- 
plies to the constituencies, the Conservative Office shows itself 
less democratically inclined; it does not care about having 
“Labour Members,” even for show purposes; while in the way 
of financial supporters it is not very fond of the plutocrats 
whom the Central Liberal Association welcomes so warmly. 
In order not to be under too great obligations to them, which 
would give a few wealthy men or parvenus special claims at the 
expense of the aristocratic element in the party, the Conser- 
vative Office has fixed a sort of sumptuary rate for their sub- 
scriptions; it does not accept more than £100 from a single 
person (except for special funds). It can easily practise such 
self-denial, because the vast majority of the large fortunes 
happen to be in the hands of the Conservatives. 


supplied, not long ago (in 1895), by the attitude of the Conservative Association 
of Warwick and Leamington, where a Member had to be returned in the place 
of Mr. Peel, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on his elevation to the 
Peerage. By the compact concluded in 1886 between the Conservatives and 
the D‘ssentient Liberals allied against Irish Home Rule, they agreed to give 
up all electoral competition among themselves, and stipulated reciprocally for 
the right to select the candidate to fill the parliamentary vacancy according as 
the seat had been occupied by a political adherent of either section. Mr. Peel 
having belonged to the Liberal Unionist group, the Liberal Unionists of War- 
wick hastened to select a candidate of their own political complexion. The 
local Conservative Association started a Tory candidate against him, pretend- 
ing that the compact in question, having been concluded by the leaders, could 
not bind it. In vain did the Central Office try to bring it to reason. The 
leaders, and notably Mr. Arthur Balfour, thereupon exerted their personal 
influence. It was of no avail. ‘The Association replied by refusals couched in 
resolutions breathing an intractable independence: ‘‘.. . while admitting the 
great services rendered by Mr. Arthur Balfour to the Conservative cause, this 
meeting protests most emphatically against the recent pressure of the leaders 
of the party ... against the exercise of this pressure as depriving the con- 
stituency of its constitutional right to return the member who may locally 
be considered to represent the political views of the constituency.’’ The meet- 
ing, adds the Times, from which this quotation is taken, was stated to be of 
a most united and enthusiastic character. 

An analogous case arose at Birmingham, in 1888, about the parliamentary 
vacancy created by the death of John Bright. And Mr. Balfour, then Secretary 
of State for Ireland, had to leave his post at one of the most troublous periods 
in the history of Anglo-Irish relations, and travel all the way to Birmingham 
to overcome the resistance of the local Tories. 


526 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirep parr . 





Between the central Organization and the local Associations 
of the Tory party there is an intermediate grade in the form 
of Provincial Unions. England and Wales are divided for 
this purpose into ten provinces (the metropolis, Lancashire 
and Cheshire, Midland Counties, etc.). As for Scotland, the 
Tory organization there is established on the same basis as 
that of the Liberal party, that is to say, it is supposed to have 
an existence of its own, and it also forms a national Federa- 
tion with a council of delegates meeting in Edinburgh. Inde- 
pendent in theory, the Tory federation of Scotland gravitates 
altogether in the orbit of the English head office, as is the case 
with the Liberals. The Provincial Unions of England and of 
Wales, created in 1886 in a spirit of decentralization, have 
not succeeded in developing an autonomous life. The head- 
quarters of the party were not anxious for them to take a high 
flight,! and the Central Conservative Office has even managed 
by a clever contrivance to get them into its toils. Over this 
provincial organization it has placed agencies of its own, the 
territorial jurisdiction of which exactly coincides with that of 
the Provincial Unions. By offering them the gratuitous use 
of their offices and staff, the agencies soon managed to get a 
footing in the Unions, and they rapidly became the main- 
spring of the Conservative organization down to the electoral 
Divisions. Without possessing any formal power in them, the 
provincial agent of the Central Office nevertheless controls all 
the local Associations in the Union, thanks to the fact that he 
represents the Central Office not only with its prestige as organ 
of the great leaders, but also with its resources of which the 
Associations so often stand in need —speakers for the meet- 
ings, political literature, and last, but not least, money; an 
Association which does not try to conciliate the agent of the 
Central Office would not obtain any assistance. To this mate- 
rial power it adds the seduction of civility to the secretaries of 
the local Associations. Thus, without even resorting to much 
wire-pulling, the Central Office ensures the organization of the 

1 Thus, when it was proposed to give the Provincial Unions the management 
of the work of organizing meetings and lectures in their respective districts, 
the representatives of the Central Office opposed it, alleging that this extension 
of the powers of the Unions “‘ would weaken the hands of the central Execu- 


tive’’ (Conference of the National Union of Constitutional and Conservative 
Associations, sitting of the 22d Nov., 1887). 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS — 527 





party a complete unity of management which makes all the 
threads converge in the London office and utilizes the popular 
Associations for its own ends, so as to get hold of the voters 
all the more easily. Possessing the reality of power, the Or- 
ganization of the leaders looks on that of the popular Union 
as harmless and as even serving the purpose of “a safety-valve 
to let off the gas.” 

In fact, the Union of Constitutional and Conservative As- 
sociations is rather a show body, but it none the less has a 
certain demonstrative value. The annual conferences of the 
Union are held with the same display of representation as on 
the Liberal side; they also attract the attention of the whole 
country; the great leaders of the party attend them and speak 
at them. They enable the representatives of various elements 
in the party to come in contact, it is true, for a short time 
only. The “gentleman” element at first rather objected to 
sitting with the “paid agents” sent as delegates, the secreta- 
ries of the local caucuses, who had the great demerit of getting 
their living by work. Disliking the physical promiscuity, the 
gentlemen were by no means inclined to come into intellectual 
contact with them, to submit their ideas to their judgment and 
to listen to their speeches. But of late years the professional 
element, on the activity of which the electoral destinies of the 
party more and more depend, and in general the plebeian ele- 
ment, has increased in importance in the formal meetings of 
the Union. The professionals have carried a rule which con- 
cedes to all the secretaries of Associations de juve membership 
of this parhament of the party Organization, without having 
to solicit their appointment as local delegates on each occasion. 
They command more attention; they are listened to when they 
speak. 

As regards exchange of views, the conferences of the Con- 
servative Organization offer more facilities than those of the 
Liberal Caucus, because there is more freedom of discussion 
in them; it is not stifled as under the Liberal wire-pullers in 
the meetings of their party. The material conditions are also 
more favourable in the conferences of the Conservative Union 
because they are much smaller than the meetings of the 
National Liberal Federation. But with this greater freedom 
of debate the decisions of the parliament of the Tory party 


528 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurep parr 





are devoid of effect, as we are already aware from the his- 
torical account of the position created for the Union by the 
revival of the leadership after the fall of Lord Randolph 
Churchill. Unlike the Liberal leaders, the chiefs of the Tory 
party do not consider themselves tied and bound by the reso- 
lutions adopted at the meetings of the delegates; these resolu- 
tions do not become ipso facto planks in the platform of official 
Conservatism. In the course of the last few years the Union 
has more than once passed resolutions which would have most 
seriously embarrassed the leaders, if they had been obliged 
to comply with them—as, for instance, the motions inde- 
fatigably levelled against free trade, which might have 
threatened the alliance, so important for the Tory leaders, 
with the Liberal Unionists, Mr. Goschen and his friends, for 
whom commercial liberty is a dogma of their political creed. 
To denounce free trade was equivalent to denouncing the alli- 
ance and sending the Tory party adrift on the ocean. The 
danger, therefore, would have been great if the Union had fol- 
lowed up its resolutions by starting an agitation in their favour 
throughout the country. But it could only have done this 
through the federated Associations, whose local leaders are 
still under the spell of the prestige wielded by the big men of 
the party in London. The manifestations of the Union never- 
theless still inconvenience the official leaders of the party, 
and in order to “give them a free hand,” attempts have been 
made to induce the conferences of the Union to confine them- 
selves to the business of electoral organization proper, and 
not to take up questions of general policy, or at all events 
to discuss them without recording a formal vote. They would 
thus be allowed to amuse themselves for a moment with great 
affairs, “to debate for a while,” and then, like good children, 
they would give up their plaything. The plan has naturally 
not found more favour with the delegates than it does with 
children; the standing orders have not been modified in this 
sense, but since then in more than one particular case the as- 
sembly has followed the procedure in question, by “deciding 
to allow the discussion to lapse without taking a vote.” 

If the influence of the Union is, for the present, of moder- 
ate importance in the management of the Tory party, if it 
cannot boast of manufacturing opinion like the Liberal Fed- 


FIFTH CHAP.] SUPREME GOVERNMENT IN THE CAUCUS — 529 





eration, nor of being able to force itself on the official leaders 
of the party, the Organization at the head of which it is 
supposed to be nevertheless does discharge, for the play of 
opinion, functions analogous to those which are the raison d’étre 
of its rival of the Liberal party. Only the impulse comes 
from another point; it is not the Conservative Union which 
pulls the strings, but the Central Office. It is this body which 
has succeeded in laying hand on the new machinery of the 
party, and which makes it execute all the movements required 
for picturing the spontaneous outburst of the feelings of the 
party. At a signal given by the Central Office the local 
Associations vote resolutions on the policy of the day, send 
addresses to the foremost leaders to “strengthen their hands ”; 
on the eve of an important division in the House it is at the 
request of the Central Office that the chairmen of the local 
caucuses telegraph to their Members to “vote straight.” At 
the Liberal head-quarters the wire-pullers of the Federation, 
conjointly with the representatives of official Liberalism, make 
the machine go, whereas here the henchmen of the leaders 
alone set it in motion. The working of the Tory system 
therefore simply accentuates, gives point to the traits peculiar 
to both organizations, the government of which is really mo- 
narchical or oligarchical under a republican and democratic 
constitution, in which a wide and more or less popular base is 
crowned at the summit by the power of a few wire-pullefs, 
forming together a quasi-organic whole. 


VOL.I—2™M 


SIXTH CHAPTER 
AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 
af 


ALonesIpDE or behind the regular armies of the party Organ- 
izations there are irregular troops as well, also formed into 
regiments and disciplined, but intervening only as auxiliaries. 
Among them the first place belongs to a variety remarkable 
alike for the exceptional importance of its effective forces and 
for their composition. These are the battalions of Amazons, 
party Associations made up exclusively, or to a great extent, 
of women, and offering them a field of political activity which 
they do not possess elsewhere and a sphere of influence which 
they had hitherto never enjoyed in the English State nor in 
any other country. 

Under the Constitution of England women have always been 
excluded from political life. And it is in vain that a vast 
amount of erudition has been expended in trying to prove that 
they enjoyed the parliamentary franchise in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. In a judgment of the Court of King’s 
Bench, of 1739, it was noted incidentally that women had no 
right to vote; for, according to the remark of one of the judges, 
“the choice of Members of Parliament requires an improved 
understanding which women are not supposed to have.” ? This, 
no doubt, was the general opinion. The mere idea of women 
politicians occurred to men’s minds only at times of great 
constitutional disturbance; the public imagination had to be 
greatly unsettled by the force of events to conceive such a 
notion even with a malicious intention. It was, in fact, under 
this aspect that the political rdle of women was viewed, as is 
proved by the pamphlets and caricatures of the time of the 
Commonwealth in the seventeenth century,” and afterwards of 

1 Modern Reports, VII, case of Ingram v. Olive. 


2In the collection of political pamphlets presented by George III. to the 
British Museum there is a small volume called “An exact Diurnale of the 


530 


SIxTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 531 





the period following the great Reform Bill.1 And it was only 
in the second half of our century that public opinion regularly 
took up the question, which has since become one of the prob- 
lems of the day, continually agitated in the country and fre- 
quently discussed in Parliament, but still unsolved. 

However, women had not waited so long as this to descend 
into the arena and demonstrate or act in one fashion or an- . 
other. First of all, the women of the lower orders appear on 
the scene. The popular societies founded about the year 1792 
under the impulse of the French Revolution, in imitation of 
the Paris clubs, had members of both sexes, citizens and citi- 
zenesses. Inthe secret associations which swarmed during the 
years 1815-1820 women attended the meetings in large num- 
bers and, on the initiative of Bamford, were allowed to vote.? 
Before long their share in the movement became so consider- 
able that Associations composed exclusively of women were 
formed with all the apparatus of committee-women, chair- 
women, etc. The Female Reform Society of Blackburn near 
Manchester took the lead. It distributed a circular in the 
manufacturing districts inviting the wives and daughters of 
working-men “to form sister societies for the purpose of co- 
operating with the men and of instilling into the minds of 
their children a deep-rooted hatred of our tyrannical rulers.” 
A deputation from this Society attended the Reform meeting 
convened at Blackburn, and presented a cap of liberty and an 
address to the assembly. At the great meeting of the 16th 
of August, 1819, at Manchester, which gave rise to the ‘‘ Man- 
chester Massacre,” two women’s clubs arrived in a body with 


Parliament of Ladyes, Printed anno Dom. 1647,’’ with a vignette on the title- 
page representing the interior of the House of Commons with the Lady Speaker, 
Lady Sergeant at Arms, and the Lady Members on the benches (Collection of 
Pamphlets, an. 1647, E 386 310). 

1 A coloured print, of the year 1835, portrays a meeting of women engaged 
in electing a Member of Parliament. Two candidates are before them, of 
whom one, Darling, young and good-looking, is in the attitude of a dancing- 
master, and surrounded by a bevy of pretty women; the second, the political 
economist, of a more solemn than pleasant exterior, is kicking his heels alone 
inacorner. ‘‘ Do not vote for ugly old stingy ’’ is inscribed on a board raised 
in the air, while Cupid or his representative holds up another appeal: ‘‘ Vote 
for Darling and parliamentary balls once a week.’’ A reproduction of this 
print is inserted in the work, already quoted, of Grego, Old Parliamentary 
Elections. 

2 Samuel Bamford, Passages in the Life of a Radical, p. 134. 


532 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





a white silk flag.1 A few years later, at the time of the agi- 
tation for the Reform Bill, the women of the town of Birming- 
ham, which was the head-quarters of it, made their little 
manifestation. Not to be behindhand, the Tories of Nor- 
wich also applied to the women, adjuring them to use their 
influence against the Reform Bill.? 

The women of the upper ranks, of the aristocracy and the 
middle class, for a long time displayed no interest in politics 
save in so far as they affected their narrow circle or even the 
persons closely connected with them. Sometimes they are 
seen to exert themselves on their behalf as canvassers, but not 
often. One of these ladies, the Duchess of Devonshire, ob- 
tained celebrity by the zeal with which she canvassed for her 
friend, the illustrious Whig orator Fox; she even allowed a 
butcher a kiss in exchange for a promise to vote for the can- 
didate whom she was patronizing. The political and social 
revolution effected in 1832 for the benefit of the middle class 
did not give an impetus to women politicians. During the 
Anti-Corn Law agitation the women of the Liberal middle 
classes no doubt co-operated zealously in the immense adver- 
tising work organized by Cobden’s League, but they did not 
appear in public except at the banquets, at the teas of the 
League, where they discharged their traditional functions of 
presiding over the tea-table. In the election contests they 
did not intervene much oftener than before 1832; they are 
hardly remarked in the canvass.? Still less, of course, are 
they seen on the hustings. After a considerable time, at a 
period very near our own, they appear there occasionally for 
a moment to apologize to the audience for their husbands 
when detained by illness or business. The special aroma 

1 Annual Register for the year 1819, Lond. 1820, pp. 104, 106. 

2 In their appeal to the ‘‘ ladies of Norwich,’’ they expressed themselves as 
follows: ‘‘If ever you felt for the ruin and disgrace of England, and for the 
miseries and depravities of the obnoxious Reform Bill, you are called on by 
the most tender and affectionate tie in nature to exert your persuasive influ- 
ence on the minds of a father, brother, husband, or lover; tell them not to seek 
filial duty, congenial regard, matrimonial comfort, nor tender compliance till 
they have saved your country from perdition, posterity from slavery” 
ates in G. J. Holyoake’s Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life, Lond. 1892, I, 

3 Blue Books, 1835, Report on Bribery, p. 56. — Canvassing by women, how- 


ever, spread to a certain extent, and in rural districts the wives or daughters 
of country gentlemen went about soliciting votes for their husbands or parents. 


sIxTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 533 





which pervades family life for Englishmen made them rather 
appreciate this display of conjugal devotion and give an in- 
dulgent reception even to the little puff which the wife occa- 
sionally, in the innocence of her heart, slipped in on behalf 
of her absent husband, when she vouched, for instance, to the 
electors for his political integrity; for, “knowing him better 
than any one else, she could say one thing, —that he always 
kept his promise.” 

After the advent of the democracy in 1867 the situation 
changed considerably, both in consequence of the propaganda 
of the political equality of women, which made signal progress, 
thanks to John Stuart Mill, and owing to the vast. extension 
of the suffrage, which demanded new modes of action on the 
more numerous voters. The co-operation of women became of 
value, and at the general election of 1868 they took, for the 
first time, a very important part in the canvass. “The new 
class of voters,” we read in a parliamentary enquiry of the 
year 1869, “were most tremendously squeezed at the last elec- 
tion,” especially by ladies of the upper classes, who, by their 
social position, impressed the working-men, the shopkeepers, 
and other small folk who had just been invested with the suf- 
frage.1 At the same time another habit was introduced: 
women spoke at public meetings, at first to advocate the elec- 
toral rights of their sex, and afterwards on party politics. 
At the first meeting they did not venture to look in the face 
of the audience, who would perhaps have given them a bad 
reception, and they read their speeches, which, however, did 
not save them from the violent rebuke levelled at them from 
the House of Commons “of having disgraced themselves and 
their sex.”? In the meanwhile, women obtained the right to 
vote at municipal elections (in 1869) and at the elections of 
school boards (in 1870). At the general election of 1880 they 


1 Blue Books, 1868, 1869, Vol. VIII (Report on Parliamentary and Munici- 
pal Elections), p. 228. One of the witnesses summoned before the parlia- 
mentary commissioners, speaking of the electoral pressure exerted by women, 
mentioned the fact of a countess who spent half a day with the keeper of a 
level crossing, trying to persuade him to vote her way. To understand the 
tenacity displayed on both sides, it should be added that the incident took 
place in Scotland. 

2M. G. Fawcett, The Women’s Suffrage Movement, in Th. Stanton’s col- 
lection of essays, The Woman Question in Europe, Lond. 1884. 


534 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





joined in the fray, with great vigour, as canvassers and as 
speakers at election meetings. Mr. Gladstone, although an 
avowed opponent of female suffrage, addressed a very senti- 
mental appeal to them begging thein to help him to combat and 
vanquish his Conservative rivals.’ The appeal was responded 
to, but the Tories also found help among the women. They 
fought on both sides as free lances, as isolated combatants, 
without any organization. The Conservatives were the first 
to enroll the female contingents, and it was the Primrose 
League which served as regiments. 


Jit | 


The reader will recollect the circumstances in which this Or- 
ganization had been founded. The members of the “ Fourth 
Party,” headed by Lord Randolph Churchill, being anxious to 
emancipate Toryism from the aristocratic camarilla and to 
instil fresh life into it by bringing it nearer the heart of the 
people, hit on the idea of establishing a sentimental alliance 
between the masses and Toryism, by means of a League founded 
outside the orthodox organization of the party and appealing 
frankly to popular affections and emotions. The League was 
to cover the country with a network of brotherhoods composed 
of men deeply imbued with the honour and the glory of the 
fatherland, and united among themselves, under the auspices 
of the revered memory of Lord Beaconsfield, in the cult of the 
true Conservative principles of which the illustrious deceased 
was the champion and the propagator. The beginnings of the 
League formed with such lofty aims were unassuming. Re- 
eruits did not flock to it in large numbers. But in proportion 
as its ranks widened, the spirit of hostility to the aristocratic 
leaders which animated the small group of men of the Fourth 
Party, instead of gradually infecting the members, rather 
evaporated. The surrounding atmosphere was evidently 
charged with the feelings of respect and the traditional preju- 


1 “Tt would be,’’ said Mr. Gladstone, ‘‘the performance of the duty the 
neglect of which would be in future time a source of pain and mortification 
and the accomplishment of which would serve to gild your own future years 
with sweet remembrances, and to warrant you in hoping that each in your 
own place and sphere has raised your voice for justice and has striven to 
mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes of mankind”’ ([bid). 


SIXTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 535 





dices which have invariably constituted the essence of Tory- 
ism. Before long no flavour of heterodoxy was to be found 
in the Primrose League, so much so that the official leaders of 
the party had no reason to refuse it their approbation. In the 
meanwhile, the League opened its ranks to women. This no 
doubt was a grave departure from tradition; but consider- 
ing itself not so much a political association framed on the 
stereotyped model as a champion of “moral order” in the 
political society of England, the League deemed it lawful and 
expedient to summon all the living forces of society to the 
combat. In fact, the League pretended in recruiting its ad- 
herents to disregard not only the distinction of sexes, but also 
those of classes, of social stations, of religion, and even of 
party. Founded for the propaganda of “ Tory principles” and 
in consequence entitled “Tory Primrose League,” it now 
dropped the adjective “Tory ” everywhere and declared that 
it devoted itself to the defence of religion, of the fundamental 
institutions of the Realm and of its imperial ascendency. All 
willing men obeying the call of honour, all patriots were 
invited to rally under the banner of the League for the de- 
fence of the foundations of social order which at that time 
(in 1884-1885) seemed to a good many people specially men- 
aced by the Birmingham school with its weapon of the Caucus; 
in fact, the League was to “supply the antidote of the Cau- 
cus.” By their Conservative instincts and their deep reli- 
gious feeling women were naturally marked out for a share in 
this crusade, and by their mere presence they completed the 
institution of the new knighthood; for was not the approba- 
tion of the lady the highest reward of the exploits of the 
knight ? 

However this may be, the admission of women into the 
League made it a success. From that date (1884) the num- 
ber of its members began to grow with astonishing rapidity. 
The women carried the men with them, and in a short time 
the ramifications of the League extended into the four corners 
of the Kingdom, forming in less than ten years a formidable 
Tory militia of more than a million, which surpasses the 
regular army of the Tory party not only in numbers, but often 
also in fighting strength. 

I say Tory militia, although the League disclaims this epi- 


536 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rutrp part 





thet, and often puts the words “independently of party poli- 
tics ” at full length after its name. Founded for the defence 
of the glorious principles above mentioned, the sole task 
ot the League would be to instil them into men’s minds, to 
propagate them. Its undertaking would therefore be simply 
“educational” without intervening in militant politics, or as 
Lord Salisbury expressed himself at one of its first annual 
meetings: “You are not confined within rigid party lines; 
you are not attached to members or candidates in any locality. 
You are the general missionaries of the principles which you 
profess, and, if I may say so without irreverence, you are 
rather the preaching friars of the message that you have to 
convey than the regular clergy attached to each particular 
district.”? In reality this is not so, the independence of the 
League does not exist even in the attenuated form which the 
noble Marquis attributed to it. From the outset it identified 
itself with the Tory party in its “rigid lines.” The division 
of the English political world into two sharply defined camps, 
and still more the vagueness of the general principles which 
the League has proclaimed, made it almost necessary for it 
to adhere to a particular line of conduct and to follow this 
line from point to point on pain of losing its foothold 
altogether. 

Thus by the defence of religion the League understood not 
only the struggle against “infidelity and atheism,” but also 
opposition to the religious neutrality of the public elementary 
schools,® even if this were demanded, as is the case in England, 

1 Cf. the numerous publications of the League, such as the Primrose League 
Manual (last edition approved by the Grand Council in June, 1894), What is 
the Primrose League ? (Leaflet No. 86), ete. 

2 Annual meeting of 1886 (Times, of the 20th May, 1886). 

3 In fact, in a commentary on the principles of the League, from the pen of 
one of its high dignitaries, it is explained that the League strives to combat 
secular education, to oppose ‘‘ those who would deprive our children of all 
religious instruction and all knowledge of God, as the so-called Liberal party 
on the Continent are doing to the utmost of their ability.’”’ It would appear 
that in the eyes of the League secularism and atheism are convertible terms, 
and that Christians who are not hostile to secular education are not sincere 
Christians: ‘‘ All Christians have one point of doctrine in common, namely, 
that they believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; 
and if they are sincere, they are ready to defend that first principle against 
the Secularist and the Atheist, and to lay down their lives forit. They allagree 


that religion should be the basis of education and of government’’ (The 
Primrose League, by G. 8. Lane-Fox, Vice-Chancellor Primrose League, p. 6). 


sixtu cHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 587 





by millions of Dissenters animated with the deepest religious 
feeling going to the point of bigotry. It is therefore not so 
much for religion as for the official religiousness enforced by 
the secular arm, of which the Tories were the traditional cham- 
pions, that the League has gone to battle. As a matter of 
fact, the members of the League almost all belong to the Estab- 
lished Church, with avery small sprinkling of Protestant 
Nonconformists, of Catholics, and of Jews who join with them 
in professing the Tory creed. This close alliance of the 
League with the Anglican Church has even served its political 
opponents of the Catholic faith (especially the Irish National- 
ists) as a pretext for asking the Pope to forbid Catholics to 
belong to this organization, which contains so many Orange- 
men denouncing Popery with all the virulence which is char- 
acteristic of them. The Roman Curia examined the question 
at length and finally decided against the opponents of the 
League. 

The other great principle inscribed by the League on its 
banner —the maintenance of the fundamental institutions of 
the Realm — with no clearer definition, did not lend itself, in 
the way of action, to any special interpretation; for how are 
institutions maintained ? By never laying@ghand on them ? 
But in that case is there not a great risk of their being allowed 
to fall into ruin under the ravages of time? If, on the other 
hand, in order to preserve the edifice the injured or decaying 
parts must be renewed and constantly changed, it is only in 
particular cases that the question can be put, whether the 
change proposed is conservative or destructive, and it would 
be impossible before the cases giving rise to these questions 
had occurred to give an anticipatory and general answer to 
them and adopt it as an unvarying rule of conduct. Has not 
the policy of Tory statesmen themselves undergone an evolu- 
tion? have they not themselves taken in hand constitutional 
changes which they had just declared to be subversive and 
sacrilegious ? In the matter of settled and comprehensive 
notions of conservatism there was and there is, in English 
political life, nothing but the firm of the “party ” which goes 
by the name of Conservative. Consequently, the Primrose 
League, being anxious to do “conservative” business, has 
had no alternative but to hold fast to that firm by simply 


5388 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [turrp part 





following the daily quotations ruling in the market of the 
“Conservative party,” that is to say, devote itself to the main- 
tenance of the institutions which that party will defend, and 
so long as it will defend them.1 With some exceptions, this 
holds good of the third principle of the League, to wit, the 
maintenance of the “ imperial ascendency ” of England. Hence 
from the very start it fell into line, naturally and spontane- 
ously, behind the Tory party; its branches speedily became a 
counterpart of the regular organization of Toryism, having the 
same territorial divisions, defending the same policy and plac- 
ing their efforts, in the constituencies, at the disposal of the 
same men, of the local Members or the candidates of the party. 


III 


The organization of the League is elaborate and curious. It 
presents an odd combination of old bric-a-brac with well-con- 
trived modern machinery. The first element symbolizes, it 
would appear, the preocctpations of honour and chivalry with 
which the founders of the League were imbued. Every ad- 
herent of the League of either sex, having signed a solemn 
engagement to @fend religion, the Estates of the Realm, and 
the imperial ascendency of the British Empire, receives a 
special title according to the amount of his contribution — 
that of “associate” if he only subscribes the minimum figure, 
or that of “knight” or “dame” if he or she pays half-a-crown 
a year more, for the “tribute” credited to the central fund of 
the League. Entering the order with the grade of “knight 
harbinger” (at the time of the foundation of the League it 
was called “squire”), they can, after a probationary period 
of twelve months and for distinguished services, be raised to 
the dignity of “knight companion ”; ladies fulfilling the same 
conditions are promoted to the “Order of Merit.” With no 
other qualification than their devotion to the League they can, 
on payment of a guinea a year, be admitted, the men into the 
“Tmperial Chapter of the Primrose League,” and the women 
into the “ Ladies’ Grand Council of the Primrose League.” 


1 One of the chiefs of the League in reality only admitted this when he said 
to me: ‘‘It cannot be asserted that the Primrose League is attached to the 
Conservative party. for there has been no Conservative party since 1867.” 


sixTtH cHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 539 





The members of the “Imperial Chapter,” who are called 
“Knights Imperial,” govern themselves by an elected council, 
at the head of which are a prior and two sub-priors, whereas 
the “ Ladies’ Grand Council” receives its presidents (extra- 
president and president) and vice-presidents from the hands of 
the Grand Council of the League. Each of these dignities 
is certified by a diploma and symbolized by special badges, to 
which are added various kinds of trinkets, brooches, and pins 
instituted for the use of the members.’ These badges are 
worn at the meetings of the League and on other solemn occa- 
sions, as well as a bunch of primroses on the anniversary of 
the death of Lord Beaconsfield. In addition, special decora- 
tions are conferred on the most deserving members, from the 
“Grand Star,” with its five grades, down to the simple clasps 
of honour. The lists of the decorated appear regularly in the 
official gazette of the League. All the members of various 
denominations are brought together under a hierarchy which 
extends from the remotest corners of the kingdom to London. 
Wherever there are as many as thirteen members, they can 
form themselves into a local branch or “ Habitation,” after 
having obtained letters patent for that purpose from the 
supreme authority of the League, which is called the “ Grand 
Council.” All the Habitations of an electoral division or 
of a county can group themselves into a divisional council or 
a county council. The delegates of the local Habitations, 
meeting once a year in London, form the “ Grand Habitation,” 
supposed to be a sort of Parliament confronting the executive 
power of the League, the Grand Council, at the head of which 
are a grand-master, four vice-grand-masters, with a chancellor 
and a vice-chancellor. The local Habitations also possess a 
whole hierarchy of dignitaries —ruling councillors or lady 
presidents, executive councillors, treasurers, secretaries, war- 
dens and sub-wardens, each and all wearing badges distinctive 
of their offices. 

It.is these latter, the “wardens” and the “sub-wardens,” 
who are the mainspring of the organization. The territorial 
area of each Habitation is parcelled out among them into dis- 
tricts and blocks, which they work systematically for the good 


1 Cf. the illustrated catalogue of the badges of the League, The Authorized 
Badges of the Primrose League (Publication No. 110). 


540 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp eart 





of “the cause,” that is to say, for the triumph of the Tory 
party at the next election. In places where the Conservative 
Associations are weak or non-existent, the League takes in 
hand the organization of the party. In any event, it aids the 
Associations in their task, and in this respect it is subordi- 
nated to the local Association. As soon as election time 
begins, the Habitation is obliged to place itself bodily at the 
disposal of the Association or of the Tory candidate. In the 
interval between the elections the League helps the Conserva- 
tive Association of the locality in its daily labours, and es- 
pecially in those of registration. Its members keep an eye 
on the removals and arrivals of voters in the district, supply 
the Association with particulars of the occupiers of the houses, 
and finally, by way of check and revision, conduct a regular 
registration canvass parallel with that carried on by the agents 
of the Association. The female members of the Habitation 
are specially valuable for the service of information, which 
often requires dexterity and lightness of hand. Having more 
leisure than the men and taking advantage of the privilege 
of their sex, which enables them to circulate among the 
population with more freedom, that is to say, without draw- 
ing attention to their capacity of political emissaries, the 
“dames ” quietly work the constituency in a continuous fash- 
ion. As they go along, so to speak, they sow the good seed 
destined to produce a splendid harvest on election day. They 
“explain the principles of the League” in their application 
to the questions of the day; they lavish information on the 
lower-class voter recently admitted to political life to set the 
“lies of the Radicals” in their true light. Undoubtedly there 
are among the Primrose Dames women of a really superior 
mind, capable of discussing a question, and excellent speak- 
ers. But these are exceptions; the great majority is very far 
from being so qualified; which, however, is not surprising, 
looking to the character of the education which was vouch- 
safed to their sex down to a recent period. The reasoning of 
the Primrose Dames is therefore necessarily more of a senti- 
mental order. It is too often reinforced, as is alleged, by 
arguments ad hominem of an entirely material nature, by small 
presents, of food or coal, and by promises to obtain work. 
The distribution of relief by the charitable institutions to 


sixty cHar.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 541 





which the members of the Primrose League belong is, it is 
said, practised and used by them with a view to the same 
object. The League, of course, indignantly repudiates these ° 
charges. 

In addition to this familiar aspect of political education, the 
League also carries it on by means of lectures, of meetings, 
with speakers of the locality or imported from London or other 
large centres, and of publications, especially leaflets distributed 
indefatigably and with much method by the dames. The lect- 
uring work is ingeniously reduced to a very simple form. 
The managers of the League in London have had a few lect- 
ures written on two or three subjects (the Primrose League, 
the British Empire), and send copies to the local Habitations, 
where they have only to be read. Often it is the clergyman 
of the place, who is almost invariably one of the pillars of the 
League, who performs this duty. Accompanied by very nu- 
merous projections from a magic lantern, which constitute the 
chief, if not the sole, attraction for the public, the lectures try 
to impress the imagination with the greatness of the father- 
land, of the monarchy, of the time-honoured institutions of 
the country, of its colonial empire. The historical erudition 
introduced into these compositions is intended to serve the same 
object, by proving, for instance, that Queen Victoria is the 
direct representative of the oldest unbroken line of sovereigns 
ever known; tracing her descent from Fergus I, an Irish 
prince and founder of the Caledonian monarchy in Iona about 
the year 330 before the Christian era, which said Fergus is 
alleged to be descended in his turn from Heber, a notable Mile- 
sian who is supposed to have conquered Ireland and to have 
founded a dynasty there at a date contemporary with King 
David of Israel. 


IV 


Nevertheless, however considerable the number of lectures 
and of speakers who address the meetings so frequently held 
in the Habitations, as well as of the publications distributed 
in certain years by millions, it is not doctrinal propaganda 
which is the chief business of the League. Its real weapon, 
the one which always tells, is the social action which seeks 


542 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [turiep part 





to realize “the union of classes,” as opposed to the Radicals, 

who are accused of only fomenting class dissension, who “set 
class against class and man against man.” The League throws 

its doors wide open to persons of every social condition, down. 
to the humblest, —to small shopkeepers, to artisans, to day- 
labourers, to washerwomen, to majid-servants,—and once 

brought together the members of the upper and well-to-do classes 
overwhelm them with civilities in order to prove to them in an 
impressive way that the high-born and the wealthy “are the 

friends of the poor people”; so that the flame of cupidity kin- 

dled in the popular breast by the Radical agitators would die 

out of itself. The League just supplies the common ground of 
meeting and provides the opportunities for it. With this object 
it has elaborated a whole liturgy for the communion of classes 
by means of fétes. The Associations have their social meetings 
as well, but it is the League which is the great contriver of 
them and which has well-nigh identified its existence with 
them and raised them to the level of a political force, almost 
of an instrumentum regni. Every Habitation organizes as often 
as possible festive gatherings, rising from simple “teas” 
to “high-class entertainments” and “fétes.” The “teas” 
which are the most modest of the meetings, are also the most 
common. Then come the concerts, the dances, the balls. 

The “ fétes,” which combine all these amusements, are often 
adorned with small dramatic representations, — tableaux vi- 
vants, ventriloquism, conjuring, “ Italian marionnettes,” clown- 
ing, etc. The experience and the zeal of the organizers of the 
Primrose League fétes succeed in the difficult task of varying 
the programme, as is proved, for instance, by the poster re- 
produced on the next page. In the programme of all the meet- 
ings of the League a place is always given to political elo- 
quence, but it is never allowed to monopolize the audience; 

long speeches are not tolerated. In truth, the addresses at 
the entertainments of the Primrose League are rather an 
aperitive, which does not even stimulate the appetite. Con- 
sequently, the speaker, even if he were a M.P., plays a some- 
what retiring part in them.’ 


1A Tory M.P., in a very amusing book, gives a fancy and necessarily over- 
charged description of it, but of which the substance is true: ‘‘I am asked 
to deliver an address to the members of a certain ‘Habitation.’ I appear at 


sIxTH cHaP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS = 543 





Not to mention the attraction of refreshments supplied at 
an exceptionally low rate, and which have drawn on the 


what the lawyers call the locus in quo, in due course, and am welcomed by 
the active and intelligent secretary (all secretaries have a prescriptive right 
to be termed active and intelligent). ‘Ah, Mr. Blank!’ says he. ‘How are 
you? Glad you’vecome.’ (Asif it had not been an arranged thing for weeks!) 
‘Awfully busy, —capital meeting, — we shallhavearoomful. They have come 
to hear Melville Jones, you know.’ ‘So there is to be another speaker,’ I say 
to myself. ‘Some local celebrity, fully prepared to cut me out and bring down 
the house.’ I hang about in a purposeless way for a bit, as it seems to be 
nobody’s business to pay me the slightest attention, and listen to what seems 
to be a kind of tuning up behind somewhere. Presently the secretary passes 
again. I hail him. He is a cheery man, with a pleasant wit. ‘Walk up, 
walk up, just a-goin’ to begin,’ he says with a smile, to intimate, I suppose, 
that the Ruling Councillor is prepared to take the chair. Icontrol my feelings 
at this desecration of an occasion on which I am to deliver an oration that 
may, metaphorically speaking, shake England to its core, and ask, as calmly 
as I can, ‘ By the by, what is to be the order of proceedings ?’ —‘ What! haven’t 
you a programme? Let me see’ (scanning one that he takes out of his 
pocket), ‘I know you are down somewhere’ (I should think so,indeed). ‘Oh, 
yes; here you are, between Letty Smith and Melville Jones!’ —‘ Between 
Letty Smith and Melville Jones!’ I repeat to myself, with inward bitterness, 
and numerous suppressed notes of exclamation; then aloud, interrogatively 
and plaintively, for I feel that there must be something very wrong somewhere, 





PRIMROSE “DEAGUES © 9 | 7° sO Rea HABITATION. 


GRAND TEA AND ENTERTAINMENT. 


ALBERT: HALL, 2335. 202.5 


Tea will be provided by ladies of the Executive Council and their friends 
at 4.30, 5.15, and 6 o’clock. 


Evening meeting at 7.30. Doors open at 7 o’clock. 
Addresses will be given by the Marquis of ..., M.P., Col...., M.P. 
A high-class and most amusing entertainment will be provided, consisting of 


Juggling, Conjuring, Musical Grotesques, 
Iilusions and Delusions, Pianoforte Solos, 
Comic Nigger Banjoist and Dancer. 
Comic Donkey a la Blondin, 
the funniest animal in the world. 
Double clowning act, etc., etc. 


Tickets for tea and entertainment, one shilling. 
Entertainment only 3d. Reserved seats for entertainment, 3d. extra. 
Tickets may be obtained of .... 


GoD SAVE THE QUEEN! 


544 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





Primrose League in a special degree the severe rebukes of 
the judges, already brought to our notice in the case of the 
Associations and their “social meetings,”’ the gatherings 
of the League present many other powerful allurements of a 
less material nature. In the monotonous existence of the 
lower middle class and the populace they supply, down to the 
modest “teas,” a distraction enhanced by a good many charms, 
of which the intercourse of the sexes is not the least. They 
afford young people a legitimate opportunity of meeting each 
other and of completing in the sphere of sentiment the réle of 
“knights” and of “dames” which has been assigned to them 
for the defence of society. The union of sexes is thus added 
to “the union of classes.” It has procured the League a 
great number of adhesions, perhaps as many as the “union of 
classes,” which offers not only to young folk but to those of 
all ages one of the sentimental satisfactions most highly ap- 
preciated in England: the delightful pleasure of coming into 
contact with people of higher social rank. 

By paying a subscription of a shilling or sixpence, one 
becomes the colleague of titled or simply rich personages, one 
obtains access to their drawing-rooms and parks, which they 
place at the disposal of the League for its meetings, and there 
the humblest can rub up against the great ones of the earth. 
If you only have a competency, leisure, and intelligence, you 
can even be made a sharer in the labours of the League and 
enter its “inner circle.” You take charge of a district in the 
capacity of “warden” or “sub-warden,” to conduct the politi- 
cal census, and this gives you an opportunity of reporting 


‘Miss Smith? So ladies are to speak, eh?’—‘Oh dear, no. She sings; and 
a very nice girl, too. This is a sort of mixed entertainment; mixed, to match 
the company, don’t you know’ (and he smirks with satisfaction at his wretched 
joke) ; ‘songs and speeches, and that sort of thing.’ And it is for ‘that sort 
of thing’ that for weeks past I have taxed my brain for epigrams, antitheses, 
flowers of rhetoric, and so on! However, I am in for it now; so I pursue 
my enquiries, but without any real interest in the affair. ‘And Thingummy 
Jones, what does he do?’I ask. ‘Oh, he’s our big gun, — capital fellow, — 
comic singer. Going to give us something in character, I’m told.’ ... ITaban- 
don all my high hopes of swaying by winged words the destinies of an empire, 
and deliver a scratch speech, huddled into fifteen minutes, to an audience dying 
to hear Melville Jones in his celebrated song, ‘ The man who went to bed in his 
boots’’’ (Four Years in Parliament with Hard Labour, by C. W. Radcliffe 
Cook, M.P. Lond. 1890, pp. 125-127). 
1 See above, Vol. I, pp. 438, 439. 


SIXTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 545 





and exchanging remarks on the results with the personages 
who are at the head of the Habitation. With a little more dis- 
tinction or wealth, a woman of the lower middle-class can take 
her place, in the committees of which there is no lack in the 
Habitations, by the side of titled ladies, perhaps marchion- 
esses or even duchesses, and, seated in their grand drawing- 
room, discuss the affairs of the Habitation on an equal footing. 
If this does not fall in her way, perhaps she will be vouchsafed 
‘the honour, at the innumerable fétes of the League, of helping 
the great ladies to make the tea and cut the sandwiches. Her 
husband or her brother, the “knight” who spends his life in 
selling mustard or candles, will receive his cup of tea from 
the very hands of a “dame” who is a great lady. The dames 
and knights who take the lead down in their country districts 
are in their turn lifted into the London Olympus by the chain 
of the organization, which connects the local Habitations with 
the Grand Habitation and the Grand Councils. Every local 
delegate is admitted to the receptions given by the exalted 
ladies of the Grand Council on the occasion of the annual 
meeting, and the honours are done to him by live duchesses 
and Ministers or ex-Ministers. True, his share has not 
ainounted to very much, there were several thousand people 
thronging the gorgeous reception-rooms, but still he carries 
away a few shakes of the hand and a gracious smile or two. 
Thus along the whole line of society enrolled in the League, 
the self-love and vanity of its members, skilfully brought into 
play, make them close up and fall into line behind a political 
party, often apart from or independently of all political con- 
viction. This is why the chiefs of the League, anxious to 
make a wise use of their resources, are never weary of saying 
to their dames: “ Do not argue, take them in socially.” That 
is the watchword which sums up all the strategy and all the 
tactics of the Primrose League. No doubt, politicians have 
always traded on the enormous importance which Englishmen 
attach to marks of outward attention from persons of a higher 
social rank. During election time they lavished them on the 
humblest citizen; a Lord Wharton would come and see Dick 
the shoemaker to have a drink with him, and would ask his 
wife about Molly and Jenny; in our own day, the working- 
man or the small shopkeeper was courted and treated with 
VOL. I—2N 


546 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rump part 





civil speeches and smiles in the course of the election canvass; 
but once the voting was over, they no longer existed for the 
more or less exalted personages who had condescended to 
notice them. The lower-class voter was only too well aware 
of this, and on the next occasion he sometimes revolted. The 
Primrose League stepped in and filled up this gap by ensuring 
through its organization a permanent supply of civil speeches 
and smiles. They represented henceforward a market value 
which was all the greater because the recent law of 1883 made 
the time-honoured practices of corruption much more difficult 
and more dangerous, while the social consideration which the 
Primrose League undertook to provide, to meet the public 
demand, could be used as a safe means of electoral bribery. 
The social influence which the League wields with so much 
skill does not serve it solely for attracting people to it and 
keeping them in the ranks of the Tory party. If its oppo- 
nents are to be believed, the League also uses social influence 
as a poisoned weapon against those who are not of its politi- 
cal colour, by the practice of “boycotting,” which consists of 
making a solitude, in the matter of social relations, around 
the person or persons in question: no one will associate with 
them; no one will buy anything from them; no orders for work 
are given them; they are not employed in any way. Terror- 
ized in this fashion by the League, small folk of Liberal views 
are said to be under the distressing necessity of choosing 
between their political convictions and their daily bread.? In 
the course of my investigations throughout the country I have 
met with complaints on this score in several places, but in 
several others the political opponents of the League declared 
unhesitatingly that they were not troubled with boycotting. 
In any event, boycotting is seldom the effect of a regular 
order. In the small localities, in the country districts where 
people who have to earn their livelihood are more dependent 
than elsewhere, social pressure with a political object takes 
place of itself; the ground is all ready for it, and a politico- 
social organization like the Primrose League, which is always 


1 To protect the Liberal voters in the country districts from intimidation, a 
special League was formed, under the presidency of Mr. John Morley (County 
Voters’ Defence Association), but it soon came to an end (for want of clients 
to defend, say the Tories). 


SsIxTH cHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS = 547 





in the breach, naturally cultivates it by the sole fact of its 
existence. It is not unlikely even that this state of things 
procures somewhat insincere adhesions for the League; that 
there are wolves in sheep’s clothing in its ranks. But far 
larger is the number of those who, with no special sympathy 
for the League either, nevertheless join it without any social 
pressure: they simply want to amuse themselves, and at a 
cheap rate. For instance, in Lancashire, where the people are 
very fond of dancing, the subscription of 6d. or 9d. a year is 
readily paid for the right of joining in the dances of which 
the Habitations are so lavish. 


Vv 


The decisive share which “the union of classes” has in the 
activity and the success of the Primrose League, sanctions 
the preponderant part played by women who are the great 
engineers of this undertaking, alike by the privilege of their 
sex which makes the dignus est intrare, in social relations, 
depend on women or receive its full effect from their assent, 
and by the special efforts and the deliberate will which the 
Primrose Dames exert to win the good graces of those whom 
they attract into the League for the sake of the party. Hav- 
ing prepared the electoral ground by these daily and hourly 
labours, they supply at the moment of the election a very 
valuable contingent of canvassers who scour the constituency 
with an energy and zeal which know neither bounds nor 
measure; the cleverest of them deliver speeches every evening 
in favour of the Tory candidate; others perform the extremely 
irksome clerical work, —copy lists, address and distribute cir- 
culars. In every respect it may be said that the League rests 
on women ; it is they who keep it going and eventually ensure 
its success, although the number of members of the male sex 
not only equals, but even slightly exceeds, that of the women. 

It would be a mistake, however, to infer from this that the 
influence of women in the League corresponds to the impor- 
tance of their rdle. The women work, but the men direct 
them, especially the men in London. The women are only 
an instrument in their hands which they wield with skill and 
firmness, by turning to account in their case the same feeling 


548 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





on which the women trade themselves, —the snobbery which 
prevails from one end to the other of the social ladder. The 
Grand Council of Dames, which sits in London, has no real 
authority; each of its acts of any moment is submitted to 
the approval of the Grand Council composed of men. The 
Council of Dames is simply a decorative body serving as a 
pretext for subscriptions, a considerable amount of which goes 
into the coffers of the Grand Council. 

It is not only to women, however, that the managers of the 
League leave so little authority; they govern the whole Or- 
ganization in general in a somewhat autocratic fashion. The 
share of the local Habitations in the management of the 
League is still a very slight, not to say a fictitious, one. 
The assembly of delegates which meets every year in London 
(the Grand Habitation) is only a show gathering without 
independence, without a will. It is impossible for free speech 
to get a hearing there; it is stifled. All the power is in the 
hands of the Grand Council, which is to a great extent filled by 
co-optation. It is only with difficulty that an increase in the 
proportion of the elected members has been recently obtained. 
The Grand Council is not less strongly opposed to all exten- 
sion of the individual life of the country Habitations, to the 
creation of provincial centres with a little autonomy. It holds 
that an organization supported solely by voluntary effort needs 
a highly centralized government. 


VI 


The success of the League varies with the localities. Asa 
general rule, it may be said to prosper in the rural districts, 
where social influence is more powerful and where the popu- 
lation is more accessible to the special methods of propaganda 
of the League. Nevertheless, the towns also often afford it a 
good base of operations, especially in the lower quarters, the 
poor and ignorant inhabitants of which, in fact, supply the 
League with its largest electoral contingent. The north of 
England with its, up till lately, so numerous Radical strong- 
holds and its hard-headed population was not amenable to the 
League. The local Tories themselves, in Northumberland, 
for instance, did not always look with favour on this organiza- 


SIXTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS = 549 





tion which conducts politics “with dancing and feasting.” 
They were afraid, too, that the League would absorb part of 
the money which went into the chest of the regular organiza- 
tion of the party. But since then the League has managed to 
extend its system into these localities, and in this or that large 
town where the Tory leaders had roundly declared that there 
was no room for the League, there are now seven or eight 
Habitations. At the present moment the League numbers as 
many as 2300 Habitations, with more than a million and a 
quarter members. 

This wonderful success cannot, it is true, be accounted for 
solely by the fact that the League offers the English people 
distractions and gratifies its vanity. There are other and 
deeper causes, of which the reader may have already caught a 
glimpse in the foregoing sketch. In the first place, the Prin- 
rose League has really succeeded in levelling, to some extent, 
the barriers of classes which still attain sucha height in Eng- 
land in spite of the democratic progress achieved. The class 
spirit, “the classicism, this curse of England,” as old Bam- 
ford used to say,! made the small shopkeeper, the artisan, a 
social pariah whose sole touch was pollution. On this sore 
spot the Primrose League has poured healing balm; no matter 
if it is composed of coarse ingredients. From time to time 
it introduces the humble outsider within the circle of the 
“upper ten,” of the possessors of “blue blood,” and ensures 
him a courteous, if not a cordial, reception from them. The 
obsequious alacrity with which he seizes the opportunity of 
drawing close to them for a few moments, of getting a near 
view of them, of rubbing up against them with a feeling of 
beatitude on account of their rank or their wealth, is no doubt 
devoid of moral beauty. But beneath this snobbery, to which 
one may, if one is so disposed, apply the epithet of abject, is 
human dignity vindicating its too long neglected rights. 

Again, political relations had, for more than half a century, 
in vain called for a social cement; all that they got was the 
artificial cement of party with its more and more perfected 
machinery. The Primrose League offered as a rallying-point 
for all men of good-will in every condition of life more general 
and more generous principles than the narrow and sectarian 


1 Passages in the Life of a Radical. 


550 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [THIRD PART 





dogmatism of party; it wrote upon its banner the words: con- 
stitution, country, religion, without any epithet. Men’s 
imaginations could not help being impressed, the hearts in 
which a desire for political fraternity was vaguely stirring, 
less conscient and less articulate than that for social fraternity, 
but not less real, were touched. Here, again, it mattered little 
that this was only an illusion, that in reality the League had 
farmed out inalienable principles to a party. In this case, 
and far more still in that of the union of classes, it was base 
metal which it offered instead of pure gold; but if you are not 
aware of it, is not bad money as good as genuine money ? On 
the other hand, it is an acknowledged fact that in the long 
run spurious coin debases the market. In the moral sphere the 
effect is the same, — spurious moral coin degrades the national 
character. And it is permissible to enquire what the influ- 
ence of the Primrose League is in this respect. 

The grateful leaders of the Tory party, with Lord Salisbury 
at their head, are never weary of extolling the beneficent effect 
of the League on English political life. According to them, 
it has not only provided a most potent instrument for drawing 
together the children of the common country for the defence 
of their prosperity, but it has also developed public spirit and 
rescued the English democracy from the domination of the 
professional politician, by preventing it from sinking into the 
condition of a mechanically wire-pulled democracy. No doubt 
the League brings together the “children of the common coun- 
try,” and even does so often, but with what object has been 
seen. The most obvious result of these meetings, the least 
debatable from a moral point of view, amounts perhaps to a 
certain softening of manners; for the lower-class Englishman, 
often somewhat brutal or of rough exterior, the meetings of 
the Primrose League, presided over by dames and “gentle- 
men,” are a sort of drawing-room where he acquires a polish. 
The League’s claims to gratitude for having quickened public 
spirit would be open to dispute if it were admitted that public 
spirit presupposes a consciousness of the public interest and 
unselfish devotion to the public weal. For the motive power of 


1 Cf. Lord Salisbury’s speech of the 23d April, 1889, at Bristol, and of the 
20th May, 1889, on the occasion of the sixth annual meeting of the Grand 
Habitation. 


sixtH cuap.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 551 





the League is utter selfishness on the part of the “superiors,” 
who try to pick up votes by it, and on the part of the “in- 
feriors,” who join it for the sake of the greetings and smiles of 
these personages. The regular organizations of both parties are 
very far from being free from selfishness, but with the League 
it is undisguised, it hails people and entices them like passers-by 
in a public thoroughfare. No doubt the League has succeeded 
in lifting a good many voters out of their political indifference ; 
it has laid hold of a large section of the new country voters 
invested with political power by the extension of the suffrage, 
and not prepared for it; it goes on mobilizing at each election 
contingents which, left to themselves, would never have ap- 
peared on the field of battle. But if they only blindly obey 
the word of command, as is the case with the ignorant portion 
of the electorate which the League brings up to the poll, they 
simply constitute what has been styled in America “voting 
cattle,” from which the party derives a momentary advantage, 
but from which the honour and the future of the country suffer. 

As to the merit ascribed to the League of preventing Eng- 
land from sinking into the condition of a “mechanically wire- 
pulled democracy,” it has in reality all the less power of doing 
so because it is itself a machinery and, what is novel and 
unprecedented, a machinery which manufactures sentiments. 
By the steady movement of its special organization, working 
methodically and continuously, it is able to supply the market 
of the party with social consideration to order, so to speak. 
And, as in modern industry, it can easily find an outlet for 
its product at a distance by consigning, for meetings and 
fétes, ladies of title to the localities which have no supply of 
them. Although advancing in the country by simple vis 
inertiae, the League is beginning to show symptoms of decay 
(this twofold phenomenon, contradictory in appearance, is not 
unknown in large organizations; it marks their culminating 
point). The receipts of the Grand Council, consisting mainly 
of “tributes ” from the knights and dames of the local Habita- 
tions, are on the decline, while in a good many Habitations 
the ardour of the early days is cooling down. Liberal sub- 
scriptions were contributed to the Habitations to enable them 
to give fétes and entertainments, a show was made of meeting 
people who had been habitually considered as inferior beings 


552 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rniep part 





on equal terms; these heavy sacrifices were submitted to, but 
the game is beginning to pall. Nevertheless, the Primrose 
League still has a future before it, and a considerable part to 
play in English political life. A marked elevation of the 
intellectual and moral standard of the electoral masses com- 
bined with a real readjustment of the reciprocal feelings of 
classes, or a hopeless decline in the fortunes of the Tory party, 
would be required to deprive the League of its raison d’étre. 


VII 


The appearance on the scene of the Primrose League, bring- 
ing an unexpected and extremely effective reinforcement to the 
Tory party, surprised the Liberals greatly, and before long 
they decided to use the same weapon against their opponents, 
to confront the Primrose Habitations with Associations of 
Liberal Women. Started in the north (at York) by isolated 
efforts, the movement gradually spread, and in 1886 there 
were already a sufficient number of Women’s Associations to 
form a federation. The outline of their organization was bor- 
rowed from that of the Caucus; that is to say, it is established 
on a representative basis, by means of successive delegations, 
with complete self-government. The autonomy is twofold: 
not only are the Women’s Associations not managed autocrati- 
cally from the centre, but men have no power in them, for 
they are composed exclusively of women, unlike those of the 
Primrose League. Joining in the warfare of the political 
parties, the Liberal women set before themselves a loftier ideal 
than that which appeared to them to issue from the practices 
of the Primrose Dames; their aim was to work for political 
and social progress by adopting a moral as well as a political 
standard of action. Their propaganda therefore was to be 
directed not only towards men, towards electors who, by 
their votes, can assure the triumph of Liberal principles 
in legislation and in government, but was to be addressed 
especially to women, to arouse in them the public spirit, the 
interest in the common weal, which the want of education as 
well as the manners of the times had hitherto prevented them 
from feeling. As regards modes of action, the Associations 
were to appeal only to the intelligence and the moral sense- 


sixTH cHArP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 553 





Consequently, they have eschewed all the symbols and em- 
blems, all the high-sounding titles, all the cheap display of 
badges and decorations, with which their Tory rivals have 
bedecked themselves. 

The importance of the Associations formed by Liberal 
women varies a great deal from one locality to another. Some 
of them number as many as a thousand or fifteen hundred 
members, whereas others do not run to a hundred or even 
have only an intermittent existence. The great majority 
of the members is composed of wives of working-men, but 
the women of the middle class manage and, so to speak, 
keep alive the organizations. The aristocratic element is not 
absolutely wanting, but it is of small importance and cannot 
be compared with the troop of titled dames and of ladies 
whom the Primrose League can bring into line. The pecu- 
niary resources of the Liberal Associations are consequently 
not considerable; provided by the donations of the well-to-do 
members, they are increased by the very modest contributions 
of the members belonging to the working class. The women 
of the lower orders, when they pay, do it with a regularity 
and a conviction which are all the more praiseworthy because 
the Associations cannot offer them the same satisfactions as 
the Primrose League. ‘There is, in fact, a good deal of politi- 
cal earnestness about them which resembles the religious fer- 
vour of simple souls, and many of them have shown a real 
wish to learn, to obtain a glimpse into the mysterious region 
called “politics.” The methods employed for “political edu- 
cation,” which is one of the principal objects of the women’s 
organization, are of the usual type: meetings, lectures, and 
distribution of literature. Their meetings have this special 
feature, that they are hardly ever large public gatherings, like 
those organized by the caucuses, but more of a private charac- 
ter and with an aspect differing according to the surroundings, 
from the drawing-room meetings down to the cottage meetings 
in the villages. In the former case, the members assemble 
in a lady’s large drawing-room to hear speeches and political 
lectures delivered by persons of either sex; in the latter, the 
village women meet in a cottage or in a kitchen to hear a tour- 
ing lady politician or to join in the perusal of a newspaper, 
interrupted now and then by the unruliness of the domestic 


554 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rmep part 





animals, which has to be restrained. Politics are often com- 
bined with women’s work in the form of “sewing-meetings ” 
and others which are held periodically. But the most popu- 
lar combination is, as with the Primrose people, the “tea 
meetings” and other “social meetings,” embellished with in- 
strumental and especially vocal music. It will be seen that 
the Liberal women have all the same borrowed from the Prim- 
rose League not only the idea of their organization, but also 
some of their modes of action, within somewhat modest limits 
it is true. Their teas and conversaziones are but a tame re- 
flection of the fétes of the League; no ventriloquism, Blondin 
rope-walking, or greasy poles, no “union of classes” effected 
by bringing together Duchesses and washerwomen. But, on 
the other hand, the Associations of Liberal women have not 
succeeded in raising the political propaganda to the moral level 
which they had in their minds. It is only fair to admit that 
very sincere and very serious efforts were made to carry out 
the plans of civic education which they had formed. The 
Associations or their Federation organized lectures and even 
regular courses of civic instruction given by eminent women. 
In a good many places energetic and devoted persons sought 
out the women of the lower orders and imparted to them a 
little political knowledge of the most rudimentary kind; with 
this object they visited country districts, penetrating even into 
small hamlets. Nevertheless, these efforts have not attained 
great dimensions, being paralyzed at one time by the enor- 
mous difficulties of the undertaking, at another by the elec- 
tioneering preoccupations which — save as regards the modus 
operandi —absorbed the Liberal women almost as much as the 
Primrose Dames. 

The Women’s Associations have, in fact, become a sort of 
extension of the party machine. Like the Primrose Dames, 
the members take a large part in the canvass, with this dif- 
ference, that in the Liberal camp not only “ladies” but also 
women of the lower classes are mobilized and sent into the 
field; and these latter are by no means the least zealous. The 
oratory of the female speakers is addressed both to women and 
to men. They speak in assemblies composed exclusively of 
women as well as in public meetings by the side of orators 
of the stronger sex. In local elections, in which women have 


sixTtH cHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 555 





the right of voting, it is perfectly natural that they should be 
appealed to; but often it is deemed advisable to do so even in 
questions of national politics, so as to influence men through 
them, especially when the question presents itself or can be 
presented in a moral still more than in a political aspect (for 
instance, to protest against the oppression of Ireland, or against 
the laws relating to the drink traffic, etc.). Relatively speak- 
ing, political eloquence is more highly developed and better rep- 
resented among the Liberal women than among the Primrose 
Dames. The habitual weapon of the latter is the prestige of 
their social rank and of their wealth, so that it is enough for 
them to show themselves; whereas the Liberal women politi- 
cians, being often destitute of either, can only make an 
impression by their ability, their incisive speech, or their 
argumentative power. But even among the Liberal women 
the number of fluent speakers is not large; the proportion 
of practised orators, trained in the arts of the platform, 
is of course still smaller. There is a tiny group of them 
which stocks, so to speak, the whole political market. At 
the request of the local Associations or of candidates, the 
Women’s Federation despatches its best speakers from London 
to all parts of the kingdom. At by-elections of any impor- 
tance, they make their appearance, often arriving from a dis- 
tance, in the train of the speakers of the party who invade, 
as we have seen, the contested constituencies, and they hold 
forth from morning till night to help to carry the Tory posi- 
tion. At a general election those of the lady speakers who 
have no husbands standing for Parliament also scour the 
country, visiting the points which are in the greatest danger. - 
The other constituencies have to put up with speakers of local 
reputation, a good many of whom, however, are also imported 
from neighbouring districts. The Primrose Dames seldom 
travel far; they prefer to operate in their own neighbourhood, 
where they are known.and where their name is a power in itself. 

The assistance which the Liberal politicians of the fair sex 
thus render to their party, by canvassing, by speaking, or by 
helping the caucuses in the work of registration and in other 
ways, is by no means a negligible quantity, and it is assuming 
larger dimensions every year. Still, compared with that of 
the Primrose League, their work is much less effective; it 


K 


556 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





brings in, so to speak, much less to the Liberal party than the 
League does to the Tory party: the Liberal women enrolled 
in the Associations are far inferior to the Primrose women in 
numbers and in social influence. Besides this, they are divided 
among themselves by the grave question of women’s suffrage, 
which has naturally come more to the front since the parties 
have invited women to share in their political contests. Having 
the drudgery, many of them think they should have the honour 
as well, and they strenuously demand the political vote. When 
the Liberal Federation was formed, the most ardent women 
wished to make it a base of operations for their claims to the 
suffrage, but the majority, being concerned solely about the in- 
terests of Liberalism and the Liberal party, managed to thrust 
the question into the background by concealing it under a vague 
and general formula inserted in the statutes and making the 
promotion of “just laws for women ” one of the “ objects ” of the 
Federation. The latter with its branches did in fact devote 
itself wholly to the party and, like a faithful servant, obediently 
performed for it all the work in its power. But when, in 1892, 
Mr. Gladstone declared energetically against the resolution 
submitted to Parliament in favour of conferring the parlia- 
mentary franchise on women, the revolt broke out. The 
champions of the political rights of their sex who succeeded 
in the meanwhile in “capturing” the Council of the Federa- 
tion, in obtaining a majority there, came to the conclusion 
that they had had enough of blind submission to the party 
and its leader, Mr. Gladstone, who simply made use of them 
for their own ends. The moderate minority of the Council, 
-or rather that loyal to the party, resigned in a body, and 
soon afterwards founded an independent organization, with 
the title of “ National Liberal Association of Women,” with- 
out any heed to female suffrage. A certain number of local 
Associations went over to the dissentients, but the very great 
majority (more than 400 Associations, with nearly 80,000 
members) remained affiliated to the Federation. ‘Thus there 
are now two organizations of women working on equal terms 
for the Liberal party. 

The divergence on the question of the suffrage is not the 
only one which divides the rival sisters. Managed by women 
of the aristocracy and of the well-to-do middle class, full of 


sixtH cHap.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS — 557 





combative ardour, the Federation has in its local sections a 
great number of women of the Nonconformist lower middle 
class, who, with the best intentions in the world, often display 
the temperament of aggressive virtue of which the Noncon- 
formist sects are a hotbed. Their central body, the Feder- 
ation, which considers itself not only as a party organization 
but also as a parliament of the sex, delights in “passing 
resolutions” on all sorts of subjects, and in raising questions 
relating to the sex, even of the most delicate kind, indulging, 
for instance, in public discussion of the necessity of passing a 
law against incest, of abolishing the supervision of women in 
cantonments in India, and then passing on to the question of 
vivisection, or to that of legislative measures against rural 
advertising, against the huge advertisements which “ degrade 
our English country.” The National Association of Liberal 
women has grouped around it steadier elements. It makes 
less noise, hardly indulges at all in the favourite pastime of 
the caucuses, which consists of passing hortatory, commina- 
tory, or other “resolutions,” but thinks more of the political 
education of its adherents and, what is better still, of that of 
its own general staff. It discharges this last duty admirably by 
organizing in its London office periodical discussions among its 
members, lectures on the questions of the day, delivered by 
the most competent persons, — Ministers in charge of Bills 
submitted to Parliament, eminent members of the assemblies 
where the problem is raised, publicists who have connected 
their name with the study of the question. 

The third party which has been formed in consequence of 
the Liberal split caused by Irish Home Rule, the Liberal 
Unionists, who have in many constituencies an organization 
of their own with a central office in London, also possess an 
Organization of women (Women’s Liberal Unionist Associa- 
tion), with sixty or so affiliated branches constructed on the 
same basis and working almost on the same lines as the 
National Liberal Association which has just been described. 


Vill 


Thus, in the never-ending struggle between the various 
shades of public opinion, or the various organized interests, 


558 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





not one of the combatants wishing to rank as a party thinks 
itself able to dispense with the aid of women. Excluded by 
the constitution from all participation in political affairs, kept 
at a distance from the forum by tradition and national man- 
ners, they are now entreated on all sides to descend into the 
lists in spite of the constitution and notwithstanding tradition. 
All the fury of parties was required to drive men to this ex- 
tremity. It resembles the special levies, when the belliger- 
ents, decimated and exhausted but still eager for the fight, hunt 
up fresh food for powder to sate their rage. In order to cope 
with their antagonists, many people encourage, others, out of 
party devotion, tolerate, the intervention of women in militant 
politics, but the number of men who are frankly opposed to 
it, or who, at any rate, view it with scepticism, is still very 
large. It shocks the old-fashioned politicians, both Tory and 
Liberal, and does not always rouse the enthusiasm of the new 
generation. How often have I heard the following from the 
mouth of Conservatives and Radicals: “There is no good in 
women’s electioneering.” Several representatives of the 
organizations share this opinion, basing it often on the want 
of tact displayed by women politicians, who, through excess of 
zeal untempered by prudence, are easily led into acts of petty 
electoral corruption, on the Tory as well as on the Liberal 
side, or who in their canvass make such a dead set at the voter 
as to disgust him. Many voters not yet emancipated from the 
old notions and prejudices relating to the position of women, 
even consider it somewhat humiliating to be canvassed by a 
woman, who comes to lecture them on politics. Again, the 
husbands, in the lower class for instance, do not always 
look with favour on the political activity of their wives — 
sometimes from a certain sex jealousy, at others, owing to 
the time taken up by politics. Working-men submit to or 
even approve of their wives canvassing at a general elec- 
tion in which the fate of their party is determined for 
several years, but they do not see the necessity of their do- 
ing political work continually. In the middle class, where 
the women have more leisure, the time spent is not of the 
same importance, but the perpetual coming and going caused 
by the political activity of women, the series of committee 
meetings, of general meetings, of preparations for fétes, may 


9 


or 
Or 


SIXTH cuaP. ] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 


\ 





be very irritating for the husband of a lady president and 
make him “disgusted with all this business.” Not a few 
people, too, are offended by the exaggerated energy with which 
women put themselves forward in election campaigns. In 
fact, the readiness of certain women politicians to lay hold of 
any weapon in the interest of their party and of the candi- 
date, who is perhaps a near relation, has made them introduce 
unprecedented traits into electoral tactics.1_ However, not 
much attention is paid to grumblers in the parties, and all 
help is accepted from whatever quarter it comes. 

As for the attitude of women in reference to their intro- 
duction into militant politics, it may be said, in a general 
way, that they showed much alacrity in responding to the 
appeal of the parties, more than they had exhibited in filling 
the position which the Legislature had assigned them in 
local administration, by conferring on them the right to 
vote for town councils and school boards (and by implica- 
tion the right of being elected to these latter). Party poli- 
tics, even in their extra-constitutional ways, evidently offered 
them a field of action which was more attractive, more 
emotional in every sense of the word, from the highest down- 
ward. The imagination of the woman with Liberal connec- 
tions, animated, by education or contagion, with a wish, of a 
very vague and hazy kind perhaps, for the greatest happiness 
of the greatest number, and with a belief in the infinite pro- 
gress of which “ Liberalism ” was to be the vehicle, showed her 
how to help the chariot forward by harnessing herself to that 
of the “Liberal party.” For the Primrose Dames there 


1 As, for instance, the woman who accompanies her husband to all electoral 
meetings, and in the intervals between the speeches sings little songs to amuse 
the crowd, and whose music-hall recitations often achieve more success than 
all the speakers, and really win votes on the election day. If she is a good 
hand at rhyme, perhaps she will go so far as to lampoon her husband’s com- 
petitor in one meeting after another. Some time ago, a lady, the daughter- 
in-law of a Liberal peer, who was helping her husband in his election 
campaign by fascinating the voters with her songs, introduced a stanza aimed 
at the Tory candidate into her repertoire. The latter, who was naturally 
vexed, wrote to the husband: ‘‘I am informed that Mrs. Z... lately sung 
at... the following: ‘We’ll put the Tories to the rout, and shove old X... 
up the spout.’’’ The heroine of the incident took upon herself to send this 
reply: ‘‘I have sung at .. . and other places, with great success, the following 
couplet: ‘We’vye kept X... out, and put the Tories up the spout.’ Yours 
truly, W023?’ 


560 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





opened the blessed prospect of saving souls from Radical 
damnation, of snatching from the monster of revolution and 
atheism the victims for whom it was lying in wait. The 
embroidery or the painting of the banners for the Habitation 
and its committee meetings offered the mystic languor of her 
dreamy soul and the ennui due to want of occupation that 
refuge which the embroidery of sacerdotal ornaments and 
afternoon services afford to the pious followers of the Church. 
Flinging themselves into the arena of public life, English- 
women were able to impart more intensity to their domestic 
virtues, their family devotion saw new and hitherto un- 
dreamed-of horizons open to it: here, for instance, is a woman 
who labours unremittingly from day to day to win her husband 
the favour of his future electors; another, from the moment 
election time begins, leaves everything, her home, her pleas- 
ures, delivers one speech after another, and by sheer energy 
carries off a seat in Parliament for her husband; a mother 
rushes about the country to address the electors, in one place 
for her son, who is entering political life, in another for her 
husband, or, again, for her brother. With many other women 
the motives which impel them into the arena of parties are of 
a less elevated kind; as in the case of many men, it is the 
glare of the footlights, the wish to shine and to show oneself 
off. Transferred to the political stage by women, these 
motives provide fresh pabulum for the cabotinage which is 
more and more invading English society and which casts a 
sort of shadow over that lofty and noble type of womanhood 
which is peculiar to the Englishwoman professing the maxim 
nihil humani a me alienum puto. ' Exaggerations are all the 
more readily indulged in because the interest of the good 
cause, that is to say, of the party, covers them with its moral 
authority. 


SEVENTH CHAPTER 
AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS (continued ) 


I 


Arter the Women’s Organizations, which second the regular 
Organizations in a general way, which are, if one may venture 
to use the expression, “ maids-of-all-work,” come auxiliary 
organizations entrusted with a particular duty, with speaking at 
party meetings. While having an independent origin and 
existence, these special organizations of speakers work for 
the political party with which each of them is connected. 
The prototype of these organizations is a Liberal society 
formed on the eve of the general election of 1880, when the 
Liberal party was about to deliver a decisive attack on the 
Tories, led by Lord Beaconsfield in person, by a group of 
cultivated young men of various shades of Liberal opinion. 
Brimming over with enthusiasm, they set forth throughout 
the country to champion the good cause by their eloquence. 
Their ardour and their talent contributed to the triumph won 
by the Liberal party, and they decided to found a permanent 
organization, which took the name of “ Eighty Club,” in com- 
memoration of the general election in which they made their 
first campaign. Having only the name of a club, with no 
special premises, meeting now in one place and now in another 
(like the Cobden Club formed for the propaganda of free trade), 
the Society proposed to bring together the pick of the rising 
generation of Liberals for the service of the Liberal cause 
and for enlightening public opinion on political questions 
with a more thorough knowledge and in more elevated lan- 
guage than was offered by the ordinary rhetoric of political 
meetings. From time to time the Society was to invite states- 
men of the party to come and expound their views to the 
juniors, who would imbibe the instruction of their elders and 

VOL. I—20 661 


562 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [ruirp part 





qualify themselves to discharge their duty all the better after- 
wards. The plan succeeded, adhesions poured into the Eighty 
Club, from young University graduates, from members of the 
Bar; the leaders of the party extended their patronage to it, 
and many an important political speech was delivered by them at 
its meetings. The part which the members of the Eighty Club 
took in election campaigns became of importance; they pro- 
vided the party with numerous speakers and with candidates 
ready to contest the Tory constituencies. This co-operation 
with the official party, as well as the influx of members, a 
good many of whom joined the Club precisely because of its 
relations with the party Organization, soon obliterated its 
primitive conception of an independent brotherhood of 
preachers of Liberal doctrines. Caught in the toils of the 
party, the Eighty ceased, by the force of circumstances, to be 
missionaries of the faith and became ministers of the cult. The 
crisis of Home Rule for Ireland which divided the Liberal party 
brought out, in the Eighty Club as elsewhere, the incompati- 
bility between the existence of an organized party and freedom 
of opinion within its ranks. Obeying the logic of parties, 
the Club, after some attempts at moderation and_toler- 
ance, turned out the dissentient minority.1 After that the 
Club only clung all the more firmly to the party and its official 
leaders, defending their policy and nothing but their policy. It 
became in reality a piece of the party machinery: it provides 
the Liberal Associations with speakers for their meetings. The 
Associations apply to it as toa registry office. The services of 
the speakers are, however, given gratuitously. The Associa- 
tion, or in its default the Club, defrays the travelling expenses 
only. An Association of speakers, the Eighty Club is at the 
same time a nursery of candidates. The young members of 
the Club,— and they form the majority, — by practising on the 


1 At the general election of 1886, brought on by the split, the Club left full 
liberty to its members, but soon after the election it changed its attitude. 
Mr. Gladstone having stated his views on the Irish question at one of the din- 
ners of the Club, the Liberal Unionists selected Mr. Chamberlain for the pur- 
pose of expounding their point of view at the next dinner. The committee of 
the Club opposed this. The general meeting of members to which the Liberal 
Unionists appealed decided against them, and by a majority vote formally 
embraced the policy of Home Rule. The minority was obliged to leave the 
Club. 


SEVENTH CHAP.]| AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 563 





platforms, get known in the country to the local Associations 
and the central Organization, and by the oratorical assistance 
they render establish claims on them for being put forward as 
candidates. Having attained this object, that is to say, hav- 
ing got into Parliament, they remain members of the Club, 
with the additional duty of serving their party on the platform. 

Having been obliged to turn out of the Eighty Club, the 
Liberal Unionists founded the Liberal Unionist Club on the 
same pattern. The Conservatives, on their side, have created a 
special corps of speakers under the name of “The United Club,” 
which renders the same services to the Tories as the Eighty does 
to the Liberals, and it is also a piece of the machinery of 
the party. It might perhaps be noted that the United Club is 
not only a nursery of candidates, but a candidates’ trade-union 
as well. The organization of the Tory party, the Central Office, 
being only too prone to select the candidates from a limited 
social circle, the aspirants who are not so well connected, but 
more intelligent, can, as an organized body, force the hand 
of the Central Office—now that platform eloquence is of 
such paramount importance in party contests — by the simple 
alternative: no seats, no speakers. 


II 


Along with the auxiliary organizations can be discerned 
others which are only allies. Independent by their origin 
and their peculiar aspirations of party politics, they never- 
theless give their co-operation to one party or the other, accord- 
ing as it is favourable or hostile to the special cause which they 
serve. The principal of these special causes provided with — 
organizations which ally themselves with the parties are con- 
nected with the Church and the public-house. The monopoly 
of the Established Church, which was long so oppressive for 
the Nonconformists, led them to form an organization for its 
disestablishment, while the mischief caused by drinking in 
English society, and especially among the toiling masses, gave 
rise to associations which strove to obtain from Parliament 
legislative measures against the sale of spirituous liquors. 
Threatened in their interests, the publicans in their turn 
organized themselves all over the kingdom. The Church, 


564 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [turep Part 





though already possessing an organization in the clergy, rein- 
forced it with a special defence institution. The Liberals 
having always fought for freedom of conscience and the secu- 
larization of the State, and the Anglican Church having been 
from time immemorial the stronghold of Toryism, the two 
organizations endeavouring the one to carry the Disestablish- 
ment of the Church, the other to defend it, naturally took 
sides the one with the Liberal, the other with the Conserva- 
tive party. Again the Liberals, having been the first to 
espouse the cause of temperance in Parliament, threw the 
publicans into the arms of the Tories, who were quite ready 
to receive them. Thus by the force of circumstances there 
has grown up a community of action between the parties and 
the organizations in question, which, without being bound 
to them, render them great services. 

The association which demands the separation of Church 
and State is called the “Society for the Liberation of Religion 
from State Patronage and Control,” or, by abbreviation, the 
“Liberation Society.” Founded more than half a century 
ago, it has rendered some service to the cause of liberty of 
conscience. Now that this is secured, it tries to deprive the 
Anglican Church of its privileged position — without much 
success, however. Being anxious to get a majority favour- 
able to disestablishment in the House, it intervenes in all the 
elections, and it possesses for this purpose a fairly developed 
machinery in the form of paid agents, who each work up a dis- 
trict, and numerous unpaid correspondents scattered over the 
whole country, almost in every parish. While keeping up very 
close relations with the Liberal organizations which, by the 
way, are full of their coreligionists, and very often belonging 
themselves to the caucuses, the representatives of the Libera- 
tion Society try to get a candidate favourable to disestablish- 
ment brought forward, and once he is selected, they do their 
best to ensure his success at the poll. Several Liberal 
Associations, on their part, send delegates to the general 
meetings of the Liberation Society; the ties which unite them 
are, in fact, exceedingly strong, for, as Mr. Gladstone has 
said, the Nonconformists are “the backbone of the Liberal 
party.” 

The Tories, on their side, have a spontaneous ally in the 


SEVENTH cHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 565 





association for the defence of the Anglican Church, the 
“Church Defence Institution,” founded in 1860 to protect 
the Church against those who wish to “dissolve that Union 
that has existed between the Church and the State ever since 
there was a united England at all, and to take away from 
Churchmen and from God Himself the money and buildings 
which for centuries have been set apart for His honour and 
service.”} The Institution set to work to secure the co- 
operation of the clergy and the laity by forming local Associa- 
tions of them, culminating through elected delegates in a 
Central Council. It succeeded in creating a considerable 
number of branches in the country, which have materially 
contributed to. oppose the coalition of the Nonconformists and 
the Liberals. Still it has less intrinsic importance than its 
rival, the Liberation Society; for it borrows its principal force 
of action from the established clergy. The latter have even 
been recently made complete masters of the organization, By 
a sway of authority the two Archbishops of the Church have 
transferred the chief work of the Institution to a small com- 
mittee of their own creation, and placed all the branches of 
the Institution under the direct control of the Bishop in each 
diocese. Finally the Institution was altogether absorbed by 
the Archbishops’ committee into an “ Amalgamated body” of 
“Church Defence and Church Instruction” governed, under 
the Archbishops, by a Council and an Executive Committee 
which are only partly elected. By a curious innovation, 
which is a sign of the times, the Archbishops added to the 
local organization presided over by the Bishop a diocesan com- 
mittee of ladies, with a central committee of their own in 
London under the wing of the Primate of the Church; and 
then by the rules of the “ Amalgamated body” the direct re- 
presentatives of each Diocese in the Council were made to 
consist one half of men and one half of women. Here again, 
as in the Primrose League, women are invited to fight the 
good fight for the defence of the old politico-ecclesiastical 
order. 

The other organization allied with the Tories, the co-opera- 
tion of which is much more direct, and certainly more effective, 


1“ What the Church Defence Institution is, and what it is doing,” Leaflet 
No. 6, The Church Defence Handy Volume, 11 ed. Lond. 1895. 


566 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





is the association of the publicans, the “ Licensed Victuallers’ 
Association.” Financed by the great brewers and distillers, 
it has spread its net, not to say its web, all over the country. 
It has divided the territory of the kingdom into districts, each 
entrusted to paid agents, who supervise and stir up the publi- 
cans in the electoral struggle. ‘The object is to return candi- 
dates who will oppose the measures aimed at the drink traffic, 
or, what almost amounts to the same thing, to help to get 
in Tory candidates. With but few exceptions the licensed 
victuallers are all enrolled in this crusade, so that their influ- 
ence, which is unquestionably great, may be brought to bear on 
the voters. The publican is often far more the director of 
his customers’ consciences than the clergyman. The unedu- 
cated man of the lower classes falls under his influence not 
only through frequenting his bar every day, but because he is 
often his debtor, without even being led into it by vice; in 
small places the publican is also a sort of banker, a petty 
usurer, and people are too often obliged to have recourse to 
him. Indefatigable during election time, the publicans also 
endeavour in the interval between the elections to make 
recruits among the new voters who from year to year attain 
their political majority; they try to swell the Tory register. 
A considerable number of voters “put on the register” by 
their efforts may turn the electoral scale in a good many 
constituencies. 

As a set-off to this, the Liberal party can depend on the 
great temperance organization known as “The United King- 
dom Alliance,” which possesses many adherents throughout 
the country. But it is an ally whose co-operation is some- 
times dearly bought. Being for the most part enthusiasts, 
who sincerely believe that it is in the power of Parliament to 
put a stop to excessive drinking by means of laws, the temper- 
ance champions thrust their measures for prohibiting the sale 
of spirituous liquors on the Liberal party as the price of their 
assistance. To make things safer, the partisans of temperance 
have attempted to “capture” the caucuses, and they have been 
successful in a great many cases. Installed inside the Liberal 
organization, they can force its hand all the more easily. But 
as in the inflexibility of their virtuous ardour they do not make 
sufficient allowance for national idiosyncrasies, they alienate 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 567 





a number of voters from the Liberal party, and at the last 
general election (1895) they even managed to get it defeated. 
It is admitted, in fact, that “local veto” (which would 
give a majority of the inhabitants of each locality the right 
to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks) had a good deal to 
do with the rout of the Liberal party. 


III 


Among the auxiliary or allied organizations may be ranked 
also some which, while serving the same cause as the regular 
party organizations, endeavour, or have endeavoured, to attain 
an independent position, and, if the dream were possible, 
even to supplant the organizations in power. In fact, the 
growth of the Caucus on the one side, and of the Primrose 
League on the other, soon aroused emulation, with more 
or less ambitious aims, in the ranks of their parties. 
There was a great attraction in being able to pull the strings of 
an organization covering the whole country from London and 
to make it perform all the movements desired, and there 
seemed to be no great difficulty about improvising such an 
organization. Some attempts in this direction have been 
made in both camps, but they have come to nothing. The 
regular organizations have stifled them or have let the newly 
born organizations die of inanition. This is also the most 
practical way of getting rid of them, for the new organization 
generally comes forward with asseverations of its orthodoxy and 
of its ardent desire to serve the party with all its strength. The 
aspiration is such a pious one that the official Organization can 
only say amen to it. But to live and grow, an organization 
must, above all things, have money, and it is there that the old 
organization of the party lies in wait for the young one. It 
intimates to the zealots of the party whose generosity is ap- 
pealed to, that if they have more money than they know what 
to do with, they are at liberty to part with it, and as no one 
ever has a superabundance of money, the new organizations 
die out or vegetate for want of sustenance. 

Among the organizations planned or actually created under 
these conditions may be cited two imitations of the Primrose 
League, the one Liberal, the other Conservative. The first, 


568 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





“The Liberal League of Great and Greater Britain,” tried to 
bring about the triumph of Liberal principles “by associating 
men and women of all sections of the Liberal Party” in 
lodges of companions, provided with diplomas and badges and 
governed by a “Central Lodge” and a “Supreme Council”; 
after having founded — in several cases on paper only — about 
a hundred lodges, it became extinct. The Tory imitation, 
“The National Conservative League,” formed of lodges em- 
bracing all classes of society and having at its head grand 
masters, a grand secretary, a grand treasurer, a grand librarian, 
ete., still subsists. It also claims to promote the union of 
classes for the benefit of the Tory party, and that without 
going over the same ground as the Primrose League, by oper- 
ating exclusively on the lowest social strata, on the dregs of 
the population, which by their very nature escape the Primrose 
Dames. It aims at procuring the return of Tory working- 
men to Parliament. In the meanwhile, for the sake of their 
“olitical education,” the lower orders are enrolled in the 
lodges, where they meet with gentlemen, nay with Lords, 
who in the public-houses used as a rendezvous for the lodges 
hobnob with them, call them “brothers,” and make them 
speeches on the superiority of Toryism. The Conservative 
League possesses a certain number of lodges, especially in the 
southern and western counties, but it is paralyzed in its 
operations by want of money. 

There is also on the Liberal side a large organization inde- 
pendent of the Caucus, of older standing even, and with a 
somewhat glorious past. This is the National Reform Union 
of Manchester, which was referred to at length in the historical 
part of this work. It will be remembered that the Union, 
which represented originally a political current opposed to that 
of the Caucus, retired before the Birmingham Organization, 
which had become the official mouthpiece of the party. Of 
late years the Union has tried to recover its position and to 
group around it the elements of the party most advanced in 
opinions and desirous of emancipating themselves from the 
“officialism” of the central Caucus, and it has placed its 
organization at the disposal of the group of independent 
Radicals in the House. But as it has not openly broken with 
the party, and continues to co-operate with it at the elec- 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 569 





tions, the official, orthodox organization, working in concert 
with the chiefs of the party, still takes the lead, and alone 
wields the authority and influence appertaining to a party 
organization. 

Thus the experience of party organizations in England, 
although not very long, has conclusively proved that there is 
even less room for rival organizations within the limits of 
parties than in churches; that the party creed stifles or dis- 
ables every independent organization; that an organization — 
can preserve its independence of the two great parties in ,the 
State solely by placing itself outside them, in opposition to 
them. This has lately been done, as we are already aware, 
by the “ Labour party.” 


IV 


The reader recollects the circumstances in which the Labour 
party was formed, only a few years ago, for the purpose of 
assuming an independent and even hostile attitude towards the 
great parties. The workmen were invited to quit them because 
the Liberals, just as much as the Tories, represented the 
capitalist class, which exploits the masses politically and 
economically; it was urged that, having nothing to expect from 
the existing parties in the way of improvement of their lot, 
the workers should take their cause into their own hands. 
They should send Members of their own to Parliament as 
well as to the local assemblies, to fight the battle of the 
proletariate against the capitalist class. 

The first part of this proposition is of less recent origin. 
For a long time the question of more direct representation of 
the masses in Parliament had been agitated; it was pointed 
out that they were not and could not be represented by gentle- 
men; that men belonging themselves to the working classes, 
and having lived their life, were alone capable of being their 
spokesmen, the interpreters of their wants and their aspira- 
tions. A few electoral organizations were even founded, with 
the special mission of getting working-men returned to Parlia- 
ment (The Labour Representation League in 1874 and other 
associations), but they did not gather strength. The vast 
majority of the workmen remained indifferent, while some of 


570 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rnirp part 





their most influential representatives, who had themselves got 
into Parliament under the auspices of the Liberal party, were 
of opinion that it was not for working-men to treat popular 
representation from the standpoint of class distinctions; that 
they were more interested than any one in seeing these distinc- 
tions obliterated; that, having been brought within the pale 
of the Constitution, they were in charge of the interests of the 
whole nation, which included theirs, just as those of all the 
other groups of society. Towards 1888 the tendencies towards 
“Jabour representation” took more definite shape,? particu- 
larly among the Trade Unionists, when a Labour Electoral 
Association was started, with branches in the country. Still 
this movement was not directed against existing parties or the 
capitalist classas such. Its promoters even disclaimed any in- 
tention of “setting class against class”; they simply wished 
to “bring the great manufacturers and merchants and the 
working-men together, to make them join hands and try to 
raise the poor and the miserable in the scale of society.” ? 
Their sole desire was ‘a leavening of the House of Commons 
with men having a thorough knowledge of the wants of the 
masses.” * Even in the Conservative camp the question began 
to be agitated, and it appears that the luxury of a labour 
organization with the party label (National Conservative 
Labour League) was actually indulged in, which, as was to be 
expected, did not meet with the least encouragement from the 
leading organizers of the Tory party (“a chilling and discourag- 
ing reception,” as the promoter of the League complained). 
But before long the movement of labour representation and of 
a Labour party, which had sprung from Trades Unionism, was 
monopolized by the Socialists, who became particularly aggres- 
sive after 1890. The Labour party was to enter Parliament, 
not to demand various Radical measures there, but to carry 
out, by constitutional methods, the social revolution on the 
1 One of the most eminent members of the labour class, Mr. Thomas Burt, 


an ex-miner, on more than one occasion stated these views with real elevation 
of mind. 

2This year was connected with the first ‘‘ Labour Electoral Congress,” 
held at Sheffield. 

3 The Voice of Labour, being the report of the first Annual Labour Electoral 
Congress, Southport, 1888, p. 21. 

4Third annual congress of the Labour Electoral Association, at Henley, 
April, 1890. 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 571 





lines of complete and absolute collectivism. Even the 
bourgeois Socialists of the Fabian Society, composed mainly 
of well-to-do educated persons and engaged in doctrinal propa- 
ganda, thought fit to tone down their temporizing policy, of 
which the name of their patron, Fabius Cunctator, was the 
symbol. Hitherto they had hoped to transform the Liberal 
party into a Socialist party by gradual infiltration, permea- 
tion, but party tyranny, which stifled every independent ten- 
dency and prevented advanced candidates from coming forward, 
made the task too difficult and left the primordial interests of 
Labour uncared for. On the eve, therefore, of the general elec- 
tion of 1892, the Fabians launched a manifesto in which they 
gave the Liberal party a bit of their mind and exposed its 
“hypocrisy ”; and while fully aware that, looking to the great 
apathy of the working-men, there were at present not suffi- 
cient elements in the country for a Labour party which could 
dispense with the support of the middle class, they advised 
that labour candidates should be started against the Tories 
and the Liberals wherever there was a chance of their suc- 
cess.1 The Fabians provided some candidates with the money 
required for election expenses, but the success of their protégés, 
as well as of the other independent and socialist candidates, 
was not very great; with but one or two exceptions they 
merely succeeded in diminishing the number of votes polled 
by the Liberals. This very relative success of the “ indepen- 
dents” only increased their exasperation against the Liberal 
party, which was henceforth looked on as the great enemy of 
“labour,” worse than the Tories; for to feelings of capitalist 
hostility towards labour claims it added the insincerity of 
professing sympathy with the masses. Pretending to be 
favourable to “labour” representation in Parliament, the 
organization of the Liberal party in reality tried to make away 
with it; the so-called labour members which the party pos- 
sessed, and which it paraded, were not so much champions of 
the cause of labour as obsequious servants of the party, of 
official Liberalism, or, as Mr. Chamberlain put it, “mere 
fetchers and carriers for the Gladstonian party.” 

In this assertion, especially so far as it concerned the labour 
members, there was a vast amount of exaggeration. From 


1 Fabian Election Manifesto, 1892, Fabian Tracts, No. 40. 


572 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





1874 genuine working-men had entered the House, being gen- 
erally brought in by their respective Trade Unions; those of 
the miners, for instance, and others. In a dozen years there 
were aS many as ten or twelve of them, all returned as pro- 
fessed “ Liberals.” By their intelligence and their character 
they almost all did credit to the social class to which they 
belonged, and some were even an ornament of the House of 
Commons. They intervened with zeal and devotion in the 
discussion of all questions relating to the toiling masses. 
Classed among the Liberals, they followed them in everything, 
according to the ethics of parties. But in their capacity of 
men who were not politicians born and bred, they were some- 
times perhaps too eager to identify themselves with the party. 
No doubt it is always difficult for a man who enters a society 
considered superior to his own, and who tries instinctively to 
adapt himself to it, to avoid exaggerations. And how greatly 
must this difficulty of preserving one’s personality be enhanced 
when the new society is a party which holds its man in an 
iron grip, which even goes so far as to change his conscience. 
In this particular case the difficulty was increased tenfold by 
the immense prestige of the leader of the Liberal party, and 
besides this, the party helped some of the labour members by 
defraying their election expenses (just as, by the way, it did 
those of so many other non-labour candidates). It is therefore 
possible that an independent observer may have been occasion- 
ally justified in paraphrasing, with reference to the Gladstonian 
labour members, the remark of the Patriarch, by saying: “ The 
hands are the hairy hands of the people, but the voice is the 
voice of the party Whip.” But, after all, the great crime of 
these members was that they were Trade Unionists of the 
old school, with more faith in individual initiative than in 
the tutelage of the State. 

There was more foundation for the second cause of com- 
plaint; to wit, that the organization of the Liberal party was 
not sincerely interested in labour representation. In fact, 
whatever the official and semi-official mouthpieces of the party 
may say,’ it gave its support only to those labour candidates — 


1 Thus, for instance, the Speaker, the semi-official organ of the Gladstonian 
party, wrote: ‘‘ The Liberal party’s organization is so free and so elastic, that 
no section of the party can truly complain of being ignored or exeluded from 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS = 578 





donning, of course, the party livery —who had undeniable 
chances of success, and who would have got in even in spite 
of it. As for the others, it graciously made over to them 
constituencies in which the power of the Tories or of the 
Liberal Unionists was such that any opposition candidature 
was doomed to failure. The tactics were the same as those 
pursued in some of the local caucuses, where the middle-class 
bigwigs who pull the strings of the Organization rewarded 
zealous workers of the labour class with candidatures for the 
Town Council in wards which were a stronghold of the Tories. 
In reserving the safe seats for non-labour men, the central 
Caucus acted not so much from class as from party spirit; 
labour candidates with perhaps very advanced and too per- 
sonal opinions would not have offered the required guarantees 
of obedience to the party. 

Having broken openly with the Liberal party, the champions 
of labour proceeded immediately after the general election of 
1892 to organize themselves throughout the country, and 
founded the “ Independent Labour Party,” to oppose Liberals 
and Tories alike. Without including all the socialist and 
labour contingents divided among several organizations (two 
of which, The Fabian Society and The Labour Electoral Asso- 
ciation, have been already mentioned), the I. L. P. really 
embodies the new movement in all its aspects. It raised the 
banner of “Labour” pure and simple, but enveloped within 
its folds a socialist programme of a most decided kind, briefly 
defined in its statutes as having for its object “an industrial 
commonwealth founded upon the socialization of Land and 
Capital,” and expounded by one of the leaders of the party in 
the following terms: “It is the establishment of a state of 
society where living upon unearned incomes shall be impos- 
sible for any but the physically enfeebled; where the total 
work of the country shall be scientifically regulated and prop- 
‘erly apportioned over the total number of able-bodied citizens; 
where class domination should be impossible by the full recog- 
nition of Social, Economic, and Sex Equality.”! Attracting 
its fair share of influence. All that talk about wire-pulling, the Caucus, the 
undue share of power possessed by local magnates, is sheer rubbish, born out 
of the ignorance of men who know absolutely nothing of the conditions of 


political life in the great provincial constituencies ’’ (11th February, 1893). 
1 What the I. L. P. is driving at, by Tom Mann, 1894. 


574 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp parr 





some by the rigid socialism of its programme, and others by 
the vagueness of its title of Labour party, the I. L. P. has 
recruited in the country, especially in the north, a certain 
number of adherents, not very considerable, but by no means 
negligible. Almost all of them belong to the working class, 
with a sprinkling of lower middle-class people earning about 
as much as artisans, and a few cultivated persons, among 
whom are found even University graduates. A larger number 
of persons of the well-to-do and educated class, without being 
incorporated in the ranks of the I. L. P., is with them in 
heart and mind. They are first of all the doctrinaire social- 
ists; then persons without economic attainments but highly 
sentimental, with a nervous sensibility which makes them look 
on the misery in the world with horror and on existing society 
with despair; and finally, as in every movement, dilettantes, 
not to say quidnuncs, who run after the last fashion, or what 
they believe to be such. 

The working-class contingents are composed of two clearly 
defined sections: of a small minority of intelligent men, with 
noble aspirations, of excellent character, and of a very large 
majority of ignorant people, often taken from the dregs of 
society, of loafers, of social waifs and strays, of poor wretches 
who are open to one preoccupation only, — that of the stomach. 
And it is by appealing to their animal wants, by creating a 
feeling of revolt in their minds, that the I. L. P. attracts 
them into its ranks. A good half of the members of the 
J. L. P. are old followers of the Liberal organization; the 
remainder has been recruited partly in the Tory camp and 
partly in the circles which had hitherto, by their indifference, 
escaped the political parties. The losses sustained under 
these circumstances by the orthodox organizations, Liberal 
and Tory, were very perceptible, not so much on account of 
the number as the quality of the men who deserted them; 
they saw several of their “workers” go over to the I. L. P. 
To the great astonishment of the Tories, some of their old 
canvassers, who were by no means conspicuous in the routine 
discharge of the work of the Tory party entrusted to them, 
came out as speakers and agitators inthe I. L. P. The Liberal 
caucuses did not experience any surprises of this kind; the 
men who left them were remarkable for their enthusiasm. 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 575 





Having belonged to the Caucus for years, and having watched 
the plutocrats who led the Associations at work, they fancied 
they saw how the capitalist class duped the masses; taking an 
active part in the electoral business of the Caucus, they were 
initiated into the manceuvres of wire-pulling, to which they 
had even contributed in the sincerity of their hearts, for the 
greater glory of the “cause.” When the new gospel of labour 
and of socialism opened their eyes, they saw that the god 
which they had adored was only a rude idol; and in the shame 
and disgust which overcame them, they were glad to find in 
the I. L. P. a refuge for their wounded souls and a sphere of 
action for their ardour and their desire to serve their fellow- 
creatures. 

Moral enthusiasm is, in fact, one of the leading traits of the 
movement, and its ethical tendencies, the object of which is 
the raising of man and of society, give it its special stamp. 
They appeal with some to the intelligence, with the vast 
majority to feeling, and very often even to religious feeling. 
Whereas the socialist circles which arose in the old days, and 
which were recruited among the intellectual set, were generally 
composed of materialists and atheists, the great bulk of the 
I. L. P. are believers. The ideal pursued by the Labour 
movement is represented to them as a religious ideal, and an 
appeal is made to their religious enthusiasm to help to realize 
it. This religious conception has even found tangible expres- 
sion in the organization of a “ Labour Church” possessing a 
creed and provided with a cult. “The Church” has declared 
its aim to be the “realization of heaven in this life by the 
establishment of a state of society founded upon justice and love 
to the neighbour.” It professes that “the Labour movement 
is areligious movement; that the religion of the Labour move- 
ment is not a class religion, but that it unites the members of 
all classes in working for the abolition of commercial slavery ; 
that the religion of the Labour movement is not sectarian or 
dogmatic, but free religion, leaving each man free to develop 
his own relations with the Power that brought him into being; 
that the emancipation of labour can only be realized so far 
as men learn both the economical and moral laws of God and 
heartily endeavour to obey them; that the development of 
personal character and the improvement of social conditions 


576 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rniep part 





are equally essential to man’s emancipation from moral and 
social bondage.” ‘The services of the Labour Church consist 
of the singing of socialist and Labour hymns, of a short 
prayer, of the reading of passages from a work on religion 
or democratic politics, and of a discourse on some aspect or 
other of the movement. The Labour Church has not attained 
large proportions; after a brief existence it has amalgamated 
in some places with the I. L. P., while in others it exists 
alongside the I. L. P. and in close connection with it. 

The fervour which animates the adherents of the I. L. P. 
makes up, to a great extent, for the intellectual poverty which 
characterizes the majority of them. They display a keen and, 
it might be said, almost thoughtful interest in their organiza- 
tion; one and all pay their pennies with a sort of ritual devo- 
tion into the chest of the party, which subsists only by the 
contributions of its members. In this respect the I. L. P. 
presents a novel phenomenon in the life of English party 
organizations, in which, on the Liberal as on the Tory side, 
a few wealthy individuals, headed by the Member or the 
candidate, finance the Association. All that the working-men 
voters belonging to the orthodox parties consent to give is 
their votes, and even then, as we are aware, they want a good 
deal of pressing to go to the poll; they must be fetched in a 
carriage. They behave as if their interests were in no way 
at stake. The I. L. P. are the only ones who “ pay for their 
own politics.” 

Another feature which distinguishes them, as well as their 
socialist coreligionists, from other organizations, is their 
ardour in promoting the political education of their adherents. 
In the orthodox parties political education is talked about a 
great deal, but, as we have seen, little or nothing is done for it. 
The I. L. P. and the other socialists are the only parties which 
systematically cultivate men’s minds by classes and lectures, 
by discussion, by readings in common. ‘The activity which 
they display in this respect has given an intellectual impulse 
even to their opponents, by forcing them to study the eco- 
nomical questions which are so much talked about. The 
propagandist zeal: of the I. L. P. is indefatigable; it avails 
itself of every opportunity to expound its doctrines, to enrol 
adherents; it seeks them in the public parks, at the street- 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 577 





crossings; it distributes writings of all kinds wholesale. The 
political education which the I. L. P. offers is, in truth, of a 
somewhat limited character; it deals only with economical 
questions, which are of course always viewed through the 
socialist-collectivist prism. 

Their ethical standard is just as narrow; the unvarying 
-eriterion of political integrity is in their eyes unqualified 
adhesion to collectivism. Professing to disregard the insin- 
cere conventions of the social and political world, and to judge 
men and things by their intrinsic worth, they nevertheless 
oppose the election of Radicals animated with broad and 
genuine sympathies for the working classes, but not going to 
the length of subscribing to revolutionary collectivism. 

Sectarian in their doctrine and in their propaganda, the 
I. L. P. are naturally autoritarian in their organization. The 
discipline to which the members of their associations have to 
submit goes beyond that of the Caucus which they abhor so 
much. A member of the I. L. P. or of the older organization, 
“The Social Democratic Federation,” is never his own master. 
To be admitted into the I. L. P., a declaration must be signed 
by which the applicant pledges himself to have nothing to do 
with any political party and to vote at elections in accordance 
with the directions of the Organization. The local branch of 
the I. L. P. nominates the candidate for Parliament, but no 
selection is valid until it has been confirmed by the Central 
Council. In places where the I. L. P. does not run a candi- 
date, its adherents have to regulate their conduct by the deci- 
sions of the central body, which “decisions are final and 
binding on the branches.” The Social Democratic Federa- 
tion asserts its authority over its members in still more 
imperative terms; it forbids them to take a single step in 
elections without having consulted the respective branch or 
the General Council, as the case may be. The candidates 
elected under its auspices must submit to the control of their 
local branch in regard to local affairs, and to that of the Gen- 
eral Council for everything that concerns their parliamentary 
activity. The candidates are obliged to sign a form of 
resignation beforehand. 

In the series of “methods” laid down by the I. L. P. for 
the realization of its aim, “the education of the community 

VOL. 1—2P 


578 . DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruiep part 





in the principles of socialism” and “the industrial and politi- 
cal organization of the workers” are followed by “inde- 
pendent representation on socialist principles on all elective 
bodies,” including local assemblies, town councils, school 
boards, parish councils, etc. Even before 1892, but especially 
after that date, local assemblies became the objective of the 
champions of labour. At the annual elections for town coun- 
cils labour candidatures now occur regularly in most of the 
large towns; in several places the labour candidates have suc- 
ceeded in getting on the town councils, as well as on the school 
boards, etc., and sometimes not without advantage to those 
bodies. If they are not very competent to deal with municipal 
business (though in this respect they are in no way inferior to 
most of the councillors introduced by the caucuses), at all 
events they are resolved to keep a jealous watch on the money 
of the ratepayers and to throw the full ight of publicity on 
the proceedings of the council, including those of its commit- 
tees, the sittings of which are not public. 

The efforts of the I. L. P. to get into Parliament have not 
been successful. At the last general election (of 1895) it ran 
several candidates, but all of them were beaten, and most of 
them cut a very sorry figure at the poll—all the more so 
because the I. L. P. had made a great fuss before the battle, 
and had boasted that they would “smash the Liberal party.” 
They did not smash it—far from it; but they cracked it in 
several places; their desertion has cost the Liberals not a few 
seats. This is the only clear gain which the Labour party has 
to show. Revolutionary collectivism does not as yet tempt 
the great majority of English workmen sufficiently for them 
to shake off their accustomed political apathy and leave the 
beaten track of the historic parties, in which they walk more 
or less automatically or are dragged along by methods which 
have aneasy hold onthem. To rouse them from this indiffer- 
ence the masses lack the incentive of extreme poverty which 
the I. L. P. and their socialist coreligionists make so much 
of in their warlike appeals. Nor are the jealousies which 
devour the various socialist factions better calculated to bring 
victory to their cause. But if the hour of the I. L. P. has 
not come, and if its numerical strength is unimportant, it is 
none the less a factor in the life of English parties by reason 


SEVENTH CHAP.] AUXILIARY AND RIVAL ORGANIZATIONS 579 





of the dissolving effect which it produces on them. For by 
the sole fact of its organization it attacks not this or that 
party, but party loyalty in general; it loosens time-honoured 
party ties. In doing so it also demoralizes the leaders, who 
in their anxiety to keep their men, and through fear of fresh 
desertions, will not fail to stoop to concessions which they 
would not have made if they had listened only to their convic- 
tions or their prejudices. 


r) 


EIGHTH CHAPTER 
SUMMARY 
I 


Now that we have come to the end of our enquiry into the 
introduction, the development, and the working of party 
organization in England, we are at liberty to turn round and 
take a general survey of the route which has been traversed. 

Introduced with the intention of making the government 
of the historic parties more democratic, the Caucus has suc- 
ceeded in this to a certain extent, especially in the destructive 
portion of its work. Falling upon the leadership, which it 
regarded as oligarchical, it dismantled it and dealt a heavy 
blow at the old parties which were grouped around it; it 
powerfully contributed to overthrow Whiggism; it pressed the 
last life-breath out of expiring classic Radicalism, and helped 
to drive back old-fashioned Toryism. But it has been less 
successful in the constructive part of the task which it under- 
took. It has not been able to provide the parties with a really 
democratic government; it has created the forms of it, but not 
the essence. The soil in which the new institution was planted 
was far from being everywhere favourable to its growth, and 
it proved little more than an exotic. The political manners 
and customs of English society, taken as a whole, were not at 
all democratic; they did not require the development of the 
democratic principle to its extreme consequences with the 
rigour applied by the promoters of the Caucus. The exten- 
sion of the suffrage to the urban masses, to the degree effected 
by the Act of 1867, came before its time, as one of its most 
ardent champions, John Bright, admitted by saying that it 
would have been better to accomplish the reform in two stages, 
at an interval of twenty years. True, this fact in itself pre- 
sented nothing unusual in the history of political societies; in 

580 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 581 





a general way, it may be said that there is never any particular 
moment in the life of a community when institutions are in 
perfect harmony with manners and customs; sometimes the 
one, sometimes the other, are in advance; there is always a 
gap between them. But that does not prevent the more 
advanced community from developing, nor oblige the more 
backward one to rush wildly ahead, if no attempt is made to get 
the utmost out of the institutions. By extending the demo- 
cratic principle of the Reform of 1867, in all its legal strict- 
ness, to political life outside the Constitution, the Caucus 
pushed this principle to its extreme logical limits, which hap- 
pened to be far beyond those of the manners of the nation. It 
did not leave to time or the force of circumstances the task of 
lessening the distance between too democratic institutions 
and insufficiently democratic manners; it hurried on and tried 
to substitute for the, so to speak, chemical process of permea- 
tion, of mutual penetration, the mechanical one of external 
organization. And it simply succeeded —with some exceptions 
which will be pointed out later on — in bringing into glaring 
prominence the contradiction between the capacity and the 
power of the masses, a contradiction which can only disappear 
gradually. 

The ex-ruling class, the middle class, confronted on the one 
hand by its official dethronement, and on the other by the politi- 
eal incapacity of the masses, wished, both from ambition and 
duty,— the duty of “carrying on the Queen’s government,” — 
to reconcile this contradiction by dint of adroitness, by pre- 
serving in the management of parties the reality of power, of 
which it had been legally divested by the establishment of the 
Caucus. And this English middle class, which had played a 
glorious part in the conquest of public liberties and in the de- 
velopment of political spirit and civic dignity, now appeared 
in a new role, of an anything but lofty character; pretending 
to bow down before the masses, it let them say what they 
liked, allowed them the satisfaction of holding forth and of 
voting extravagant resolutions in the caucuses, provided that 
it was permitted to manage everything; and to cover its de- 
signs it developed the practice of wire-pulling. Being power- 
less, however, without the small ward leaders, created by the 
democratic party organization, it undertook to corrupt them 


582 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruairp parr 





systematically, to win them by acting on their “social ten- 
dencies.” Invitations to “at homes,” to garden-parties, to 
dinners with the big men of the party, free admission to gen- 
tlemen’s clubs, methodically demoralized the leaders of the 
lower middle class and of the working class, by developing 
and fostering in them the abject snobbishness which infects 
social relations in England. Having given a democratic form 
to party government, in order to liberate it from “social influ- 
ences,” the Caucus managed by the middle-class men itself 
appealed to those influences and borrowed from them the most 
disreputable part of their methods and conduct. The middle 
class often had good sense on its side and understood what 
was fitting in politics, but it was too faint-hearted to face the 
masses and it preferred to circumvent them by devices of 
management. Withholding from them the plain truth and 
offering them only the bait of gratification of self-love and 
vanity, it enervated and disgusted a good many of the best 
set to such an extent as to fling them into the sectarian but 
honest fanaticism of the Independent Labour parties, into the 
wild ideas of Utopia-mongers and collectivist agitators. 

The development of the organization of the Caucus, however, 
presents yet another aspect, which tones down that which has 
just been described. The adroitness which the middle class 
was compelled to exert was in itself a homage to the power 
conferred on the masses by the Caucus. In fact, while keeping 
a firm hand on party government, the middle class was obliged, 
owing to the very constitution of the Caucus, to share its 
authority, in appearance at least, with the representatives 
of the lower orders. The mere play of this constitution 
brought out from the ranks of the people a number of 
leaders with a voice in the counsels of the party. Under the 
social conditions which prevailed in England a quarter of a 
century back, these men would not have been able to get so 
far by their unaided efforts; the Organization of the Caucus 
alone provided them with the means by admitting their right 
to share in the government of the party, in virtue of a prin- 
ciple, and no longer as in the old days when a few working- 
men members were put on the election committees for the occa- 
sion and as decoy-ducks. The more exclusive and oligarchical 
the political surroundings were, the more the admission, even 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 583 





pretended, of the multitude to power gained in value, and the 
greater the practical effect which it produced in party life. 
The Caucus, therefore, did democratize party government on 
the Liberal side, and still more on the Tory side and in the 
rural constituencies generally. The new Conservative Asso- 
ciations, which conceded a share of influence to the simple 
“workers,” have served as a lever for the Neo-Toryism of the 
large towns called forth by Lord Randolph Churchill and his 
following; they have given shape and body to “ popular Tory- 
ism,” which was laboriously cutting a path through Disraeli’s 
nebulous doctrines, the practical necessities of “dishing the 
Whigs,” and the ambitions of the “Fourth Party” and of 
the Tory tiers Etat ; they have helped to install the tiers in 
the government of the party, to make the multitude an organic 
factor in it, and in general to impart to the rank and file of 
the party more freedom of manners, if not of mind. In the 
counties the new Organization has also helped to extract the 
practical consequences of the electoral Reform of 1885, by 
giving the masses a share in the business of the political parties 
side by side with the “ gentlemen” who had hitherto managed 
it by themselves. If the reality of the power thus conferred 
on the masses was subject to much qualification from a political 
point of view, it was otherwise with regard to its social effect; 
for in social relations, where convention is paramount, form has 
precedence of substance, and external demonstrations take the 
place of genuine feelings, by providing, through the mere fact 
of their manifestation, the gratifications of amour-propre for 
which mankind in a social state has a craving. By the inherent 
force of its hierarchy and of its formal spheres of authority and 
influence, the Caucus has succeeded in raising the small shop- 
keeper and the artisan, who were kept in a state of inferiority 
by the manners of the nation, in the scale of society. Again, 
the methods which the Caucus, and its counterpart the Primrose 
League, had created for distributing “social consideration” at 
will and making it a sort of commodity put on the market, were 
in their turn instrumental in levelling society if not in making 
it democratic. 


584 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





II 


This distinction, which is often ignored by the common 
prejudice, appears all the more legitimate and necessary in 
the present case the further one proceeds with the enquiry 
into the effect of the Caucus on the improvement of the public 
spirit of the masses, which is the sole criterion of genuine 
democracy. At the outset the Caucus, which professed to 
appeal to the masses, succeeded in arousing, in several places, 
their interest in the public weal; it attracted men who repre- 
sented the best elements of the lower strata of society, and it 
seemed to tend towards really widening the borders of the politi- 
cal community. But all this lasted but a single moment, just 
long enough to make it clear that the democracy inscribed on 
the standard of the Caucus was only a painted banner or a 
coarse sign. Independent and thoughtful people saw that 
there was no room for them among the small vulgar leaders 
brought to the surface of politics, or in the meetings and com- 
mittees where everything was cut and dried by a little coterie 
which monopolized power by pulling the strings behind the 
scenes. Having repelled these men, the Caucus has contrived 
to attract only the enthusiasts, the bigots of the party, and 
the busybodies. The great mass remained outside, sunk in 
its apathy and its indifference. 

To drag them out of it, the Caucus could devise nothing 
better than organization, which it ended almost by confound- 
ing with political education. For this latter it has really done 
nothing. The Associations have proved radically unfitted for 
serving as an instrument of political education; they have suc- 
ceeded only in turning out electioneering machines. A servant 
of the party, engrossed by its immediate duties, the Caucus 
was not in a position to apply itself to the political culture of 
the masses, of a general and disinterested kind. An election 
broker picking up votes right and left, loaded with heavy 
omnibus programmes which promised the solution of all kinds 
of different questions, to please everybody, it was no more 
possible for it to make the public mind and conscience grasp 
all the problems raised than to devote itself to each of them 
or concentrate the attention of the masses on one of them to 
the detriment of the others. The Caucus, therefore, was 


cn 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 58 





naturally inclined, instead of bringing about an agreement of 
intellects, to resort to mechanical modes of rallying its forces 
and to keep its adherents together in an external and con- 
ventional conformity, by appealing not so much to reason, 
which analyzes and distinguishes, as to feeling; by preferring 
to stir up emotions which confuse the judgment and make a 
prisoner of the will. The followers of the party were all, in 
accordance with the shifting requirements of the situation, 
provided in a lump with a stock of convictions or political 
sentiments, which spared them the trouble of all personal exer- 
tion. Political ideas were introduced simultaneously into 
their minds, and they took them in collectively, by a single 
and undivided effort. ‘We now think in battalions,” as a 
shrewd observer, a Northumberland workman, remarked on 
this subject. Lost in the crowd, even as regards the inner 
life of the intelligence and the conscience, individuality dwin- 
dled under the steady action of the Caucus, and in this con- 
nection, too, a levelling process took place, but of a kind which 
did not even possess the questionable merit of contributing to 
the enhancement of human dignity in social relations; its 
tendency was decidedly to lower the mind, in other words, to 
impair the moral dignity of man. In this work of oblitera- 
tion of individuality, the Caucus was assisting a movement 
which began before it and was operating in every-day life 
independently of it. In the first part of this book it was 
pointed out how the social transformation inaugurated by the 
industrial revolution and philosophy, in emancipating the in- 
dividual, brought about a levelling process which from many 
points of view seemed to have the effect of rather blotting 
out human personality. The unbroken progress of material 
civilization has powerfully forwarded this movement, not 
only by generalizing tastes and habits, but by forcing indi- 
viduals to dissolve into crowds, for the better enjoyment of 
the benefits of this civilization, which can only be brought 
within their reach collectively. Intellectual culture in its 
turn tended to make men more like each other. It was no 
use for the somewhat rare survivors of the old order of things 
to bemoan the fact and to regret even the fierce insular 
individuality of bygone days; the inevitable process went on 
all the same, producing, along with beneficial effects, a certain 


586 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [Tuirp part 





slackening of human personality. This last effect of the play 
of natural forces was intensified in the sphere of ‘political rela- 
tions by the elaborate action of the Caucus, which deliberately 
aimed at stereotyping opinion, thus bringing down every- 
thing to a dead level. 

Every attempt at asserting the freedom and independence 
of political thought was now repressed; for every difference 
of opinion was a blow struck at the unity of the party of which 
the Caucus had constituted itself the permanent guardian. 
The aggressive ardour of the Radical enthusiasts coincided 
with the middle-class selfishness of the wire-pullers in stifling 
opposition and the spirit of criticism in the Associations, and 
they became in English society a great school of fanaticism, 
of intolerance, of contempt for other people’s opinions, and of 
suspicion, which impugns the honesty and sincerity of oppo- 
nents beforehand. Political language, platform eloquence, 
naturally grew all the more passionate and violent and full of 
personalities. Even when devoid of violence, the jealous and 
irritable belief fostered by the Caucus produced an impatience 
of discussion which more and more infected political life. 

Sentimental devotion to the party, which the Caucus kept 
up as a cult, by saving its followers the trouble of pro- 
fessing reasoned political principles, released them from the 
moral and intellectual discipline which principles impose on 
conduct by riveting men’s minds more or less tightly to definite 
propositions and inspiring them with a resolve to look to the 
efficacy of these principles only for the triumph of their cause, 
without caring for immediate success and without stooping to 
tergiversation or selfish compromise. The Caucus, therefore, 
by engrafting in men’s minds rather a general feeling than a 
ereed of party orthodoxy, inclined them to the moral and in- 
tellectual opportunism which clutches at every proposal that 
excites mental emotions and flatters the cravings and the 
interests of the moment; it countenanced the transformation 
of a policy of principles into a policy which “must give 

1 Cf. the remarks of Mr. Thomas Burt, the well-known labour member, in 
reply to a labour leader: ‘‘One of the weaknesses — one of the dangers — of 
the time is a certain impulsiveness and impatience of discussion. Especially 
is this manifest on labour questions. Too many of our present-day reformers 


seem to imagine that they are storming a rampart rather than reconstructing 
a social system ”’ (May, 1892). 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 587 





quarterly dividends,” to quote the graphic expression employed 
by a Liberal Caucus secretary to describe the new school of 
politics. The motto of “trust in the people,” which the 
Caucus had adopted with affectation, as an absolute but 
external article of faith, almost forced on it the worship of 
what is popular and not what is just and reasonable. 

These qualities of the Caucus made it in every respect an 
admirable vehicle for the new tendencies which the extension 
of the suffrage to the urban masses, in 1868, introduced into 
the life of parties, and in particular of the one which was to 
reap the most benefit from that democratic reform, of the 
advanced party, of Radicalism. Classic Radicalism, bred 
and nurtured by the Philosophie Radicals, which lived on 
the idea and for the idea, without caring much for parties, 
which, among a middle class enjoying its prosperity, repre- 
sented the claims of right and justice and served as a moral 
leaven for that society, was dead. After 1868, Radicalism 
ceased to be a moral power and became a physical force. 
Being in a hurry to make its strength felt, it substituted dis- 
cipline for philosophy and seized on the old party organization, 
which it found still standing, to make it its base of operations. 
It identified itself completely with it and turned into a parti- 
san, anarrow partisan. Having staked its fortune, so to speak, 
on the party, and being bent on keeping it amid all the changes 
of events, Radicalism became opportunist. Having stepped 
off the solid ground of principles, it grew nervous, irritable, 
and intolerant. Standing in need of the multitude which 
upheld it, it took to coaxing; it led them on by soft words 
and promises when it had or knew of nothing more sub- 
stantial to offer them, and it contracted demagogic habits. 
All these aspects of the new Radicalism, which became the 
protagonist of the political stage, were in a way materialized 
by the Caucus; it fixed them, threw them into relief, gave 
them body if not life, thus accentuating the outburst of formal 
and sentimental democracy which took place after 1868. 


III 


The important share which the Caucus had in the advent of 
this democracy will appear still more clearly if we pass from 


588 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp parr 





the study of its general tendencies to that of its methods of 
action, which have just been referred to. To rotise the English 
voter from his apathy, to overcome the vis inertiae which con- 
stituted his conservative temperament and on which the time- 
honoured order of England seemed to rest, the Caucus erected 
political agitation intoa system. It composed a whole liturgy 
of meetings, with fiery harangues and energetic “resolutions,” 
of demonstrations, travelling vans, political magic-lantern 
pictures, “social” gatherings, political fétes, which were 
intended to keep the voter always on the go. It entered on 
the same path as that other contemporary movement which 
undertook to impart religious feeling to the lower strata of 
the population by democratizing or vulgarizing religious prac- 
tices, the movement of the Salvation Army, which, devoid of 
any theological idea, substituted physical demonstrations of 
faith and religious gymnastics for a creed, by means of a hier- 
archized quasi-military organization, with parades, with sing- 
ing, with dancing to the music of drums and fifes. Similarly, 
the Caucus, without losing itself in principles, tried to kindle 
and keep alive political ardour in its followers by “raising 
enthusiasm,” to use the accepted expression. The “sensa- 
tional” methods introduced by the Caucus into politics natu- 
rally developed a state of mind disposed to apprehend and 
resolve political problems by means of feeling, often of a 
generous but seldom of a thoughtful character. They helped, 
so far as they were concerned, to change, if one may so express 
it, the English mind, which had for some time past been 
suffering from a spirit of unrest and feverish agitation, in con- 
sequence of the revolution in the means of locomotion and other 
improvements in material civilization, which have destroyed 
the equilibrium of the old life; of the moral progress which 
has made people more alive to the sufferings of mankind; and 
finally of the spread of a smattering of culture and an un- 
wholesome publicity, which have aroused hazy ideas or vague 
aspirations and produced a craving for morbid emotions. 
While raising political agitation to the level of an instrumen- 
tum regni and making it aim chiefly at men’s imaginations, the 
Caucus has been led into giving an exceptional development 
to forms of action capable of lifting great masses at a single 
stroke; it has been induced to put wholesale methods, so to 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 589 





speak, in the place of, or, at all events, on the top of, methods 
ad hominem, in the shape of mass-meetings, demonstrations, 
smoking-concerts, picnics, and other politico-social fétes 
which attract the multitude, and which even exert a new 
form of electoral bribery over it—collective bribery. But 
whether these performances are seemingly addressed to the 
intelligence, or whether they openly appeal to the cravings of 
the imagination or the stomach, their methods do not admit 
of any modulation. The action ad hominem of the pre- 
Caucus régime, which was most fully reflected in the election 
canvass, supplemented, in case of need, by individual corrup- 
tion, was able to proportion the character and the amount of 
the efforts to be applied to the voter in each particular case. 
The Caucus, so far as the instruments of which it enjoys a 
monopoly are concerned, cannot operate in the same way. 
Thus stump oratory, platform eloquence, which is one of the 
greatest, or rather the greatest, resource of the Caucus for 
action on the mind, cannot vary its language; it can only 
sound one note, and that necessarily the highest, to be able 
to strike the dullest ear in the mixed audience which is being 
addressed. Without taking into account the diversity of tem- 
peraments, the stump administers the same dose to them all, 
and by spicing it as strongly as possible it tries to produce an 
identical amount of excitement in all. It is the same with 
the action on the “social tendencies” exerted by the Caucus 
and its vis-a-vis the Primrose League, with similar stereotyped 
means. Everywhere we find an utter want of flexibility and 
elasticity; there is invariably a rigid, uniform mechanism, 
regulated beforehand by cut and dried methods, which exclude 
all spontaneity of movement, and obeying a spirit of external 
conformity which resents all independence of thought. 

The natural effect of this combination of forces is that all 
the political relations which the Caucus tries to bring about 
are dealt with in a mechanical way. Whether it is a case of 
manifestations of reason or demonstrations of political feeling, 
everything is turned out as in a Manchester factory or a Bir- 
mingham workshop. The machinery of the Caucus supplies 
public opinion wholesale, just as the machinery of the Prim- 
rose League and of most of the Associations produces “social 
consideration,” for the consumption of voters who are partial 


590 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





to it. If a pressing need arises, if in the midst of a fierce 
struggle the moral supplies of the leaders of the party run 
short, a special consignment of opinion is forthwith ordered 
from London; a simple telegram sent to all the Associations 
of the party throughout the Kingdom is enough to make “the 
voice of the country speak.” When it is no longer a question 
of setting in motion large masses of men or procuring imposing 
manifestations, but of a select body meeting in the assemblies 
of the party parliament to draw up a common programme 
or to modify it, it is always in a mechanical fashion that the 
various opinions are made to agree; the divergent views are 
either eliminated without discussion, or even stifled by the 
quasi-material resistance which their authors encounter before 
they have even entered the assembly hall; already in the 
lobbies, in the smoking-room, they are overawed by the 
compact mass of delegates, which crushes out individual 
initiative or inclination, so much so that this effect and 
not the facilities for exchanging views, for discussion, which 
do not exist there, is regarded by the managers of the 
Organization as the raison d’étre of these great representative 
gatherings. Finally, and as a climax, even the individual 
relations of confidence and esteem between man and man are 
manufactured by the Caucus; it supplies the confidence and 
produces the esteem with which a candidate or a Member 
should inspire his fellow-citizens. If the candidate is a 
“carpet-bagger,” unknown in the locality, the Organization 
strives to “make him popular”; if, when he meets the elec- 
tors, he is unable to impress them advantageously with his 
talent or his competence, the Organization sends out its 
“workers,” who “speak for him” by flooding the constituency 
with political eloquence. 


IV 


These effects of the dwindling of individuality and the 
growth of formalism in political life, which have come to 
light in each of the different aspects from which we have suc- 
cessively considered the work of the Caucus, culminate and 
are summed up in a way in the highest sphere of political 
relations, that of the leadership. This sphere had all the less 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 591 





chance of escaping them because the leadership was the visible 
objective of the Caucus, and provided it with its casus belli. 
Having gone to war with party leadership, held by the repre- 
sentatives of the old ruling classes, the Caucus has not anni- 
hilated it —far from it; but it has subdivided it, broken it 
into fragments, or, if the expression is preferred, decentralized 
it; the leaders belonging to the upper middle class, the men 
of means and social position, have had to share their power 
with the crowd of small local leaders created by the autonomist 
organization of the Caucus. But, by working out autonomy 
and decentralization in too formal a way, with a multiplicity 
of subdivisions, in accordance with the strict logic of the 
democratic principle, the Caucus has succeeded mainly in 
bringing forward local mediocrity, and then installing it in 
the counsels of the party. The local man with limited views, 
who, left to his own resources, would never have been able to 
thrust himself on his fellow-citizens, has been hoisted up by 
the mere play of the machinery of the Caucus, automatically, 
so to speak. While these small leaders were rising to the 
surface, the old leaders, who were theoretically overthrown, 
but in reality still standing, saw their prestige decline, their 
influence diminish, and this twofold action produced a general 
levelling, which tended to shorten the average stature of public 
men, to make the type a poorer one. 

The qualities which they had to prove the possession of, in 
accordance with the principles of the Caucus, and the means 
by which they were henceforth able to succeed, thanks to the 
methods of the Caucus, made this result inevitable. Unquali- 
fied adhesion to the official creed of the party having become 
the supreme political virtue which singled a man out for the 
confidence of his fellow-citizens in the discharge of every 
public duty, and his claims being made clear to them by the 
machinery of the Organization, which aimed especially at the 
imagination, the personal worth of the individual became of 
less importance. From the men of the ward meeting, in which 
strict observance of political routine or zeal as a “ worker” 
marks out the “earnest politician,” up to the parliamentary 
representatives, not to mention the town councillors, who are 
obliged to swear political allegiance, the virtues of public men 
became more ang more formal and external, so to speak. 


592 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [tuirp part 





The deterioration of the men in charge of public affairs can 
be clearly discerned already; we have seen it break out more 
strongly in municipal life since the Caucus introduced party 
orthodoxy into it and placed its machinery at its disposal. 
Parliament has not been spared either; the choice of the 
Caucus, contrary to the promises of its founders, does not 
always fall on men of a class superior to that from which the 
national representation was recruited before the advent of the 
Caucus; the average of its nominees bears the stamp rather 
of mediocrity. The Caucus has by no means ousted the pluto- 
cratic element from Parliament nor from the counsels of the 
party. It needs it itself to provide for the upkeep of its 
machinery. Even the influence of social rank proved to be in- 
dispensable to the Caucus; being unable to turn out of its own 
mould genuine leaders who are raised above the multitude by 
some superiority,and who consequently command their respect, 
the Caucus has been obliged to accept, and often apply for, 
the services of the leaders of the old formation, while depriv- 
ing them, however, of the feeling of dignity and responsibility 
imparted by the autonomous exercise of power. Although 
constituting an obstacle to the democratic eagerness of the 
popular and advanced element of the party, the middle-class 
leaders are carried along much farther than their real convic- 
tions and prejudices would permit of, through fear of still 
more impairing their authority, which they have to protect 
by devices of management, now that they cannot use it with- 
out any disguise. When all is said and done, the monopoly 
of the leadership, which the Caucus undertook to destroy, has 
only assumed another aspect; a little more divided and left 
much less to the natural selection determined by the spon- 
taneous play of social forces, it is more manufactured, and it 
is more than ever inspired, if not solely, at all events in the 
main, by wire-pulling, with a diminution of responsibility for 
those who pull the wires. So that, if there were no danger 
in conelusions of a too sweeping kind, it might be said that 
the monopoly of the leadership which was held by the repre- 
sentatives of the old ruling classes tends to give place toa 
monopoly of wire-pullers backed by plutocrats. 

In any event, the rédle of the wire-puller, and in general of 
the “worker” of the party, is growing; all the importance lost 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 593 





by social rank in party life has been gained by the “worker”; 
his zeal and skill are becoming a claim to the leadership. And 
this is all the more natural, and almost legitimate, because 
the methods developed by the Caucus have made his “work ” 
not an improvised duty at the moment of the election, but a 
continuous occupation of an extremely absorbing kind, and 
demanding daily attention. The multiplicity, the variety, 
and the intensity of the efforts exerted by the organizations 
have made electioneering business exceedingly complicated; 
“it has become quite a science,” as is said, not without com- 
placency, by representatives of the party Organization; “it is 
now quite a business,” say others, “and you must attend to it 
as to a business.” To keep the small local leaders in working 
trim, they must be occupied; to rouse the masses from their 
indifference, they must be stirred up and stimulated unremit- 
tingly. “Political work” is never slack. In every constitu- 
ency there is now a fairly large number of persons who are 
constantly thinking about “ politics,” intent on electioneering 
schemes; in other words, political professionals. 

True, the type of these political zealots created by the 
Caucus in England has not the objectionable features of the 
“»rofessional politician ” of other countries; he is not a para- 
site, who lives on society and makes politics a trade, often a 
low trade. The number of persons who live exclusively by 
“nolitics,” although increased by the Caucus, is not yet a large 
one. They are (Iam still speaking of the extra-constitutional 
sphere) the secretaries of Associations, the employés of the 
central and provincial Organization, the “missionaries,” and 
the lecturers or other political agents. Even at a liberal com- 
putation they would hardly reach the figure of 2000 for the 
whole of England, with Scotland and Wales. Still they are be- 
coming a marked body in the midst of society; the Caucus has 
given them a permanent status, and the “ political agents” are 
beginning to form, if not exactly a separate class, at all events a 
guild. They already have a collective consciousness of them- 
selves; they possess their professional societies, their benefit 
clubs. The best foretaste, however, of the professional poli- 
tician is given rather by the small local leaders created by the 
organization of the Caucus. These men seldom make money 
out of their political situation, but most of them always expect 

VOL. 1—2Q 


594 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [tnHirp part 





some advantage from it, if not in cash, at all events in some 
other form. Toa certain degree, comparatively slight, they can 
count on the public offices granted to the winning side for ser- 
vices rendered. ‘These places are by no means numerous; the 
government service is almost free from the taint of party poli- 
tics. But in the municipal administration the subordinate 
offices are too often distributed as a political reward since the 
Caucus has sanctioned the transformation of local elections 
into contests of political parties. The recent development of 
State functionarism, brought on, for instance, by legislation 
for the protection of labour, also provides some places which 
are sought and obtained by means of politics; thus a certain 
number of labour leaders, secretaries of Trade Unions, who 
are on the look-out for workshop and factory inspectorships, 
join the party Associations for the purpose of obtaining the 
posts to which they aspire by their assistance. Others among 
the small local leaders, who have no administrative ambitions, 
hope that their activity in the Organization will do them good 
in business, in their trade, or get them on in some other way. 
In short, without creating the regular type of “ professional 
politician,” the Caucus, to meet the requirements of election 
business, which it had made extremely intricate, has brought 
into the field and grouped in permanent regiments a whole 
contingent of small people, who devote themselves methodi- 
cally to “ politics ” from more or less interested motives, which 
need not always assume a mercenary aspect to produce their 
demoralizing effect on public life. 


The ultimate result, then, is that the Caucus, which aimed at 
hastening the democratic process in English political society, 
has succeeded only in a superficial, purely apparent fashion. 
The popular form of the party Organization merely enables 
the latter to penetrate deeper into the masses for the purpose 
of capturing them more easily, and not for giving them inde- 
pendence. The design which the Caucus undertook to carry 
out, of making the entire life of the people “an organized 
whole,” of making “political and municipal life a consistent, 
earnest, true, and enthusiastic life, instead of a spasmodic 
electioneering impulse,” has utterly failed. The Caucus has 
in no way helped to raise the tone of public life. Far from 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 595 





liberating it from unwholesome social influences, it has made 
its Organization, which cleverly superintends the process, an 
instrument of “social bribery” practised for the party’s bene- 
fit. It has not increased material political corruption, but it 
has encouraged the deterioration of the mind of the electorate. 
The electioneering impulse is no longer “spasmodic,” it is 
true; it has no doubt been transformed into steady “work,” 
but performed by a special contingent of “ workers,” who only 
sow the seed of the “professional politician” more deeply in 
English soil; in society as a whole the political pulse does not 
beat quicker. On the contrary, in preventing the develop- 
ment of a spontaneous political life by its machinery, in offer- 
ing a permanent obstacle to the free exercise of the judgment, 
the Caucus tends rather to enfeeble the public mind. It only 
strengthens political party passion. Blotting out independent 
thought and enervating the will and the personal responsibility 
of the voter, the Caucus ends in obliterating the individual, 
after having undertaken to establish his political autonomy 
up to the farthest limits of the extraconstitutional sphere. 
Attacking the old leaders as if they were an impediment to 
this autonomy, the Caucus has struck a blow at the leadership 
in general, by disparaging the qualities which constitute lead- 
ership in a healthy political community, that is, the personal 
superiority conferred by knowledge and character, and exalt- 
ing the conventional and external qualifications enforced by 
stereotyped methods. In making these qualifications and 
methods an engine of government, the Caucus bids fair to 
set up a government by machine instead of a responsible gov- 
ernment by human beings. 

That is the final conclusion, the elements of which we have 
been collecting throughout this lengthy enquiry and patient 
analysis, and which, standing out with glaring plainness, 
throws a flash of light on the whole route which we have 
traversed. There we have what the Caucus democracy offers 
society disintegrated by the industrial revolution and the 
philosophic movement, the society in which the rupture of old 
ties has undermined the leadership and isolated the emanci- 
pated individual; to reconstitute a political leadership and 
embrace the individual and the community in a new existence, 
it offers a purely and grossly mechanical synthesis. 


596 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurenr part 





Vv 


If we descend from the general sphere of political society, 
which we have just been considering, into the special field 
of the political parties, with which the latter are so fond of 
identifying the national existence, and which the efforts of 
the Organization have aimed at directly, do we find more 
satisfactory results? Has the Caucus kept the promises 
which it made of ensuring by its organization on a popular 
basis a real representation to the constituent elements of the 
party? Does it provide a means of gauging and eliciting their 
opinions? Does it succeed in bringing unity out of variety, 
amid the manifold contingents which it is its business to 
amalgamate, and in maintaining their cohesion, while at the 
same time reserving the party’s freedom of action? The 
Associations of the Caucus cannot claim to be really repre- 
sentative of the party, the meetings in the wards, from which 
all the delegations of the Caucus emanate, being attended only 
by a handful of men in whom the diversity of social position 
and political temperament is far from being reflected. No 
doubt a considerable proportion of voters hold aloof from the 
Caucus, not because they disagree with it, but from indiffer- 
ence. In addition to this, the managers of the Caucus are 
careful to make allowance for opinion outside the Organiza- 
tion, and to a certain extent thus supply the deficiency in its 
representative force from their own store. But on the whole 
the channels by which this opinion penetrates into the Caucus 
are too narrow not to be obstructed by the element which pre- 
dominates in it, and which is composed well-nigh exclusively 
of the vanguard of the electoral army. It is an almost general 
fact that the Association is more Radical than the mass of the 
party, more so even than the M.P. who has had to submit to 
its demands. 

It follows in the first place that the Caucus is incapable of 
supplying a correct estimate of public opinion, of giving a 
more or less accurate idea of its tendencies and aspirations. 
And it has proved this incapacity more than once.’ Besides, 


1In 1880 the Liberal Caucus did not foresee the brilliant victory of its 
party; in 1885 it expected to win in the boroughs in which the Liberals were 
about to sustain a defeat only retrieved by the voting of the counties; in 1886 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 597 





the too close relations of the Caucus with the official leaders 
of the party rob it of the independence of mind necessary for 
giving free expression to opinion. Sometimes they have shut 
its mouth on various occasions, when it was of importance to 
know the views of the nation, as, for instance, in the Soudan 
affair or the preliminary phase of Home Rule, at the beginning 
of the spring of 1886, before the party was irrevocably com- 
mitted to that policy. At others the Caucus gave (as in the 
same Home Rule matter, a month later) wrong information 
about the state of opinion in the party, driving Mr. Gladstone 
further along the path of defeat. Thus, as a mouthpiece of 
opinion, the Caucus has failed, and is liable to fail, both the 
party in the country and its parliamentary leaders, by incor- 
rectly reflecting the views of the former and offering the latter 
an inaccurate compass. 

Being always apt to stride ahead, the Caucus forced the 
pace too much for average opinion, making the party com- 
promise itself, if not by acts, at all events by pledges which 
it was by no means easy to redeem, and this was the case all 
along the line from the local Associations up to the National 
Federation. Goaded on by the Caucus, the party sometimes 
made abrupt transitions (opposed to Home Rule one day, it 
plunged headlong into it the next); in the space of four and 
twenty hours it found itself provided with new doctrines, with 
new articles of political faith, because its Organization had 
just adopted them, either of its own accord or at instigation 
from outside; at other times the same rigid orthodoxy which 
compelled the adhesion of the party held it as in a vice, 
entangling it in the pledges given by the Organization and 
hampering its freedom of motion. Nothing was left for it but 
to pay for the mistakes and the aberrations of its Organization. 

Not being sufficiently representative of the party, either in 
its organization or in its movements, the Caucus has ensured 
cohesion in the party ranks, to the extent that this has been 
vouchsafed to it, not so much by its intrinsic force as by the 
feeling, common among the great mass of voters, of the neces- 


it declared enthusiastically for Irish Home Rule, which the country was about 
to emphatically reject; then it brought forward the Newcastle Programme, 
which, after having rallied a small majority for a moment, burst up the party 
with a formidable crash. 


598 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





sity of facing the enemy. Possessing permanent cadres, which 
enabled it to mobilize its contingents at a moment’s notice, so 
to speak, the Caucus had greater facilities for grouping the 
adherents of the party around it. Unfurling the party flag, 
of which it had assumed the custody, it could almost always 
get its candidate accepted, by conveying the impression that 
it wielded real power over the electorate. The number of 
utter mediocrities returned to Parliament, not to mention the 
town councils, thanks to the Caucus trade-mark, appeared to 
confirm this impression. 

In one respect, however, the Caucus increased the fighting 
strength of the party by its intrinsic force, by procuring the 
adhesion of many neutral or indifferent voters, who are out- 
side the organization of parties, and who press heavily upon 
them, swinging between the two belligerents. The proportion 
of these voters is systematically diminished by the efforts of 
the Caucus. That is perhaps the most important result which 
it has achieved for the party, on the Liberal as well as on the 
Tory side. Both by its daily exertions and by the sole fact of 
its existence, of its permanent Organization brought to the 
doors of the people, the Caucus has popularized the title of 
the party, has imparted to the masses the abstract notion of it, 
which by its sweeping character gets accepted as a dogma and 
takes possession of the public mind by its intrinsic force, which 
is independent of the shifting aspect of men and events. This 
effect produced by the Caucus is all the more appreciable be- 
cause the mental and logical process by which the popular mind 
manages to take in the abstract idea of the party is a very long 
one. At first it grasps it only under the concrete aspect of a 
man, of a leader; then the idea assumes the more general but 
still material aspect of the dwelling, of the castle (castle in- 
terest), with all those whom it contains, irrespective of their 
individual personalities. The owner of it, who wields the 
political influence of the locality, presents himself to the im- 
agination as possessing a continuous existence through succes- 
sive generations, as being only a single person, so that Hodge 
is incapable of distinguishing the masters of the house one 
from the other or from the building itself, which acquires 
almost an active property in his mind.’ A further step is 

1Cf. Richard Jefferies, Hodge and his Masters, 1880, Vol. I, pp. 269, 275-276. 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 599 





taken in the process of abstraction when with the image of the 
dwelling is associated the notion of an office, the successive 
holders of which are conceived of only as a single person, like 
the prefect of whom the village mayor quoted by Taine re- 
marked: “Monsieur le préfet m’a toujours conservé sa bien- 
veillance quoiqu’on lait déja changé plusieurs fois.”? Then 
after the personal presentment of the idea comes the material 
symbol, which represents it to the mind by means of an outward 
token appealing to the senses, such as the colours which the 
parties adopt, and which in the eyes of the common herd be- 
come so inseparable from the notion which they embody that 
by changing the colours the notion itself is destroyed.? In the 
next stage the parties come to be denoted by abstract symbols, 
by material terms conceived in a figurative sense, one party 
being called the high, and another the low party. Lastly, the 
mind rises to pure abstractions, expressed by terms such as 
Liberal, Conservative. The intellectual level of society being 
anything but uniform, the successive party conceptions which 
come one after another in logical order still coexist in the elec- 
torate, some voters grasping the distinction of colour only in 
the physical sense and enquiring about a candidate: “ What is 
he, blue or yellow ?” others replying with dignity to the can- 
vasser who asks for their votes: “No, sir, I never vote with 
the high party.” But the number of people who vote, not 
less blindly and more spontaneously, for the “ Liberal” or the 
“Conservative,” is an increasing majority. Furthering the 
progress of enlightenment which makes mankind, who become 
the slaves of words directly they emerge from a barbarous 


1H. Taine, Le suffrage universel en France, Paris, 1872. 

2 Before the advent of the Caucus in England, to decide between several 
candidates who offered themselves to the party, a test ballot was sometimes 
taken, and the one who obtained the most votes became the sole candidate of 
the party at the election. To enable the illiterate adherents of the party to 
make their choice, at Manchester, where Edward Jones and Milner Gibson 
were rival candidates, the idea was started of printing their names on the 
voting papers in different colours. At a test ballot between four Liberal 
candidates at Stafford, it was proposed to adopt the same plan, but the use 
of colours had to be abandoned because none of the candidates would agree 
to accept the colour of blue, for fear that some of the voters, being accustomed 
to see that colour hoisted by the Tories, would confound the Liberal candidate 
denoted by it for the occasion with them (Report from the select committee 
on parliamentary and municipal elections, Blue Books, 1868-1869, Vol. VIII, 
p. 526). 


600 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [THIRD PART 





state, advance to more and more abstract expressions, the 
Caucus, by means of its machinery, has popularized the ap- 
pellations “ Liberal” and “Conservative,” and under cover of 
them it sweeps into the organizations, in constantly increasing 
numbers, the voters who are known in them as “blanks,” that 
is to say, those who are outside the stereotyped parties. The 
dream of the organizations is to get rid of the doubtful mass 
of floating voters altogether, so as to put an end to the peri- 
odical swing of the pendulum, which gives the victory now to 
one and now to the other party, each of them hoping, of course, 
that the pendulum will stop on its side. 

And yet, in spite of the accession of “blanks,” the organi- 
zations are not nearer the realization of their dream, for they 
have, and especially in the Liberal Organization, a vast deal 
of trouble to keep their old contingents together. The par- 
ticular claims which contend with the more general designs in 
the party preoccupations, as well as the divergences of views 
on these schemes which arise within the party, are continually 
undermining ‘its cohesion and threatening its unity. All the 
efforts of the Caucus to combat these tendencies have failed 
up to the present. At its start, the Caucus announced that it 
had a cure for the evil of the divisions in the party, a plan 
for making the general will of the party always prevail, and 
for silencing the special aspirations, the particular fancies, 
the crotchets, and the fads. In reality it rather encourages 
the sects by trying to win their good graces in order to obtain 
a majority. The Organization offers them a sort of exchange 
where they can sell their quota of support, and owing to the 
general rule that the existence of a regular market enhances 
or even creates value, the groups obtain an exaggerated impor- 
tance. The natural obstacles which the bargaining of groups, 
so common in divided assemblies (log-rolling), encounters in a 
vast constituency composed of thousands of voters of varying 
intelligence and temperament, are overcome, thanks to the 
Organization, unless it can make sure of preventing the 
bargaining itself, when it is able to bring into the field a force 
large enough to intimidate the fomenters of schisms beforehand. 
Being anxious to get votes, and presuming too much on the 
electoral influence of the champions of the various special 
claims, the Caucus, especially in the Liberal party, which is 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 601 





the least homogeneous, was often too ready to come to terms 
with them and make the candidates adopt their fads. But on 
the election day the views of other sets of voters, opposed to 
one or the other of these hazardous proposals, asserted them- 
selves triumphantly in a good many constituencies, and the 
party sustained a partial defeat, as in the boroughs in 1885, 
or a complete one, as in 1895. 

The Caucus could not stop the divisions in the party for this 
simple reason, that it was unable to make divergent views not 
be so, and because divergence of views was an inevitable con- 
sequence of the divergence of interests brought about by the 
growing complexity of social relations. By the force of things 
the Liberal party was destined to feel the effects of this in a 
special degree. On its right wing was taking place a seces- 
sion of the interests which conceived themselves endangered 
by its advance, while on its left wing the new Radical and 
Socialist claims were raising up malcontents and rebels. It 
was no use inviting them to take shelter under the “ grand old 
umbrella,” or asking them to step into the “omnibus” of the 
Newcastle Programme; it was impossible to huddle the centri- 
fugal elements of the party into it and keep them motionless 
there, and the general election of 1895 furnished the most strik- 
ing proof of the vanity of attempts aiming at securing the unity 
of the party by means of organization. This lesson was in- 
flicted on the Liberal party, but the party which goes by the 
name of Conservative is in no way exempt from the same 
infirmity; in its case it only takes more time to break out. 
Most of the conclusions at which we have arrived as to the 
role of the Caucus, and its effects on English political life, 
have been supplied principally, but not solely, by the past 
and the present of the Organization of the party which goes 
by the name of Liberal; this is because that “party ” repre- 
sents the social strata which earlier attained to a more com- 
plete political development. But what the Liberal party is 
to-day, the Conservative party will be to-morrow, for in point 
of fact it is to-day what the Liberal party was only yes- 
terday. The Conservative party is no longer the “stupid 
party”;? it has got into touch with the age, its mind has 

1 This expression was applied to the Conservative party by John Stuart 


Mill, and commented on by him in the House of Commons in 1866 (Hansard, 
Vol. CLXXXII, p. 1592). 


602 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rnirp part 





expanded, and its old homogeneity has been broken; it is no 
longer the single block of bygone days.? 

In its unsuccessful efforts to combat the centrifugal ten- 
dencies in the party, to pursue the cohesion and unity which 
were oozing away, the Caucus was confronted by the historical 
fact of the break-up of parties which had been at work in 
English political society for half a century. The appearance of 
two powerful party leaders, Disraeli and Gladstone, who, after 
the confusion which set in from and after 1846, succeeded in re- 
forming two large armies, with fresh contingents supplied by 
the extension of the suffrage, gave the illusion that the old 
system of the dualism of stereotyped parties had recovered 
from its momentary collapse,—a breathing space in which 
parties, like armies exhausted by the contest, regain strength 
and reoccupy their positions. In reality there was no such 
thing; the process of differentiation of social relations, of 
interests, of aspirations, of ideas, which injured the classic 
dualism, continued with as much force as ever; that is, it 
developed the centrifugal tendencies in political society. And 
it is perfectly natural that the Caucus should have been power- 
less to stem the current. The means and the methods, mostly 
mechanical, which it adopted to obtain cohesion, doomed it to 
failure; for, once moral unity has disappeared in a community, 
no machinery, however ingenious, can restore it. And yet, 
owing to this very internal disintegration, the Caucus could 
only resort to factitious devices for reuniting the incongruous 
elements. This fact contains a new revelation, another flash 
of light succeeding that which disclosed to us that the Caucus 
tended to set up a government by machine instead of a re- 
sponsible government by human beings. ‘There we were con- 
templating the effect; here we meet with the cause. It is the 
task of trying to maintain the old unity on which the classic 
party dualism reposed, it is this hopeless task undertaken by 


1 To convince oneself of this, one has only to cast a glance at the majority 
which the last general election returned to Parliament, the largest Conserva- 
tive majority commanded by an English Ministry for half a century. And in 
the most important legislative proposal of the following year (1896), the Edu- 
cation Bill, this formidable majority was not able to provide the government 
of its choice with enough votes to carry its clerical measure favouring the 
denominational schools; so great was the divergence of views in this party of 
which the Church was always the rallying-point if ever there was one. 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 603 





the Caucus, which has forced on it methods leading to a 
government by machine. ~ - 


Not only has the Caucus not succeeded in healing the wounds 
of the old party system, but it has even aggravated its evils. 
Availing itself of the representative character to which its 
organization laid claim, and of its position as authorized mouth- 
piece of the opinion of the party, it has assumed over its ad- 
herents powers which tended to develop party tyranny by giving 
it a legal foundation. To tradition and habit, which governed 
the parties before the advent of the Caucus, it has added pre- 
tensions founded on right, on a mandate conferred, creating 
formal powers on the one hand and obligations on the other. 
There were, of course, wire-pullers and managers before the 
“Birmingham plan” was introduced, but they derived all their 
power from their personal position; now they are patented 
in the name of the people. There were also organizations of a 
more or less rudimentary or developed character, Associations 
more or less resembling the “hundreds” of the Caucus; but 
being only free combinations of private citizens, it never entered 
into their heads to set themselves up as a power before which 
everybody — candidates, individual voters, parliamentary 
leaders — had to bow. On the pretext of representing the views 
of the party in their integrity, the Caucus has assumed the 
monopoly of them. Sole depositary of its creed, it can apply 
moral coercion to all those who come under the denomination 
of the party with an effect equal to that procured by material 
force; the power of intimidation is enough for it, and it 
wields it. 

The first, the most tangible, result produced by this auto- 
cracy of the Caucus was to put an end to the free competition 
of candidates in the party; there are now only candidatures 
of one kind, the orthodox ones, stamped with the Caucus trade- 
mark; the others are doomed. The loss of this freedom in- 
evitably diminishes that of the electorate. A party which 
lives under such a régime is already half enslaved, and it 
will have, perhaps, to use very vigorous efforts to recover its 
liberty. The compulsion implied by the approved candidature 
is completed in the case of the individual voter by the behests 
of party piety, which the Caucus is watching over and which 


¥ 


604 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





consists in voting obediently and blindly. The voter who is 
not refractory but simply thoughtful is regarded as an obstacle. 
And with perfect good faith, from simple devotion to pro- 
fessional interest, a tendency arises, even in the governing 
circles of the Organization, to look with envy on neighbours 
whose voters do not exhibit this vicious propensity to argue.? 
In fact, military discipline is the secret aspiration of the 
“organizers,” when they do not proclaim it. From the inex- 
orable orthodoxy of the party which they represent there is 
now no refuge but in open schism, such as the Socialist revolt 
of the I. L. P., or again, perhaps, in the nationalist dreams 
of a “Cymry Fydd,” a movement of Welsh patriots inclined, 
in the pursuit of their dream, to relax in the strict observance 
of the Liberal creed.* No independent or open-minded organi- 
zation has been able to stand against the regular party organi- 
zations. The rivals have been thrust aside by them; the free 
organizations which drew near them drooped in their atmos- 
phere, whether they were working-men’s clubs created for the 
moral improvement of the masses, or the “Eighty Club,” 
founded in a moment of enthusiasm as a free brotherhood of 
preachers of Liberal principles, or even the Primrose League, 
which was intended by its promoters to introduce a fresh and 
a freely flowing current into the stagnant waters of Toryism. 
One and all have become in a short space of time simple annexes 


1‘ In England,’ as was remarked to me in London, in a tone of annoy- 
ance, ‘‘ they argue, whereas in Scotland they vote with enthusiasm.’’ Yet in 
Scotland, I found that the wire-pullers envied their English colleagues, for 
“the Scotchman is not like the Englishman; he goes his own way.” 

2 In the office of a Conservative Association, one of the most important in 
the Kingdom from its following in the constituency and its broad popular 
basis, I was told as soon as I had stated the object of my visit: ‘‘ You wish to 
know about our Organization! Sir, our Organization is a military organiza- 
tion; it is led by a general commander-in-chief, who is called President of the 
Association, by so many brigadier-generals, who are styled Divisional Chair- 
men, by so many colonels,’ etc. ... The same thing, however, was said to 
me elsewhere in fewer words: ‘‘ Discipline above all,’’ or ‘‘ respect and dis- 
cipline, that is our basis.”’ 

8 This movement, of slight importance, has been started lately by Welsh 
enthusiasts who hold that the English Liberal party, to which almost all the 
Welsh members belong, makes use of them without giving them anything in 
return, without serving ‘‘ the cause of the Welsh people.’’ So, deviating from 
the strict conformity of the Liberal party, the patriots of the Cymry Fydd look 
on this party ‘‘ no longer as an end, but as a means, and a means which can 
be repudiated in case of need.’’ 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 605 





of the official organizations, in which the praying-wheel of 
the party is automatically turned. 


VI 


The preservation of stereotyped parties in the country, which 
the Caucus tried to effect by straining the system in this ex- 
traordinary way, was to ensure, in the long run, the best 
possible working of parliamentary government, which rests 
on the party system. Has this type of government, which 
has so long been ‘‘ on its trial,’’ really benefited by the Caucus? 
No doubt, by helping to sweep up majorities, the Caucus 
facilitated to a slight extent, for a moment, the duty of “car- 
rying on the Queen’s government.” But at the same time its 
principles and its methods did still more to undermine the 
very foundations of parliamentary government. In the first 
place, the Caucus warped the representative principle on which 
parliamentary government reposes, and which consists in the 
personal confidence with which the Member inspires the elec- 
tors, who trust to him to manage the affairs of the nation on 
their behalf. The Caucus invariably tended to eliminate, or 
at any rate to diminish, the personal element in the relations 
between the candidate and the electors, as well as in those 
between the Member and his constituents. The old commit- 
tees, whose business it was to conduct the election campaign 
before the introduction of the Caucus, were the candidate’s 
own engine, being formed on each occasion ad hoc, by him and 
for him, whereas the Caucus, by reason of its very principle, 
is an impersonal organization representing a firm behind which 
the individual shrinks out of sight and in which he becomes 
simply a more or less anonymous instrument of a “party.” 
Under the auspices of the Caucus, the mora] understanding 
which should arise between the candidate and the electors 
whose mandate he solicits is made up to a greater extent than 
in bygone days by the external party conformity; and as for 
the personal element which still remains in it, that understand- 
ing is brought about by the increasing co-operation of people 
other than the candidate himself, by the crowd of imported 
speakers, of “workers” of the party, who devote their energy 


606 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





and their abilities to inspiring the electors with confidence in 
the candidate. 

The election over, the Member returned, once more it is 
party orthodoxy, according to the daily market quotation 
certified by the Caucus, which is set up as the criterion of the 
parliamentary conduct of the Member. If the M. P. is bound 
to his electors by personal feelings of devotion and affection, 
which come before party conformity, the Caucus, should a 
conflict break out, deliberately tries, as we have seen in the 
cases of Forster and Cowen, to stifle these feelings, to destroy 
the confidence based on the character of the man, in order to 
ensure the triumph of the conformity of which it is the self- 
appointed guardian and judge. Unable to use his discretion 
freely, and prevented from seeking his political line of con- 
duct in his own knowledge and conscience, the Member ceases 
to be a representative and becomes a delegate, a subordinate. 
The régime of a widely extended suffrage, however, is moving . 
in this direction of itself; when the number of voters becomes 
too great to allow of personal contact, from which the Member 
derives his inspirations direct and the electors their trust in 
his judgment, relations of confidence necessarily give way to 
formal pledges. The Caucus has only drawn the conclusions 
arising from this state of things while hastening it perhaps. 
Having stepped into the shoes of the electors, it drafts the 
pledges and sees that they are carried out. It is therefore 
inevitable that the Member should contract his obligations 
not so much to his electors as to the Organization, and that 
the feelings of responsibility due to the constituents whom 
he is supposed to represent, should be transferred to the 
Caucus, which stands closer to him. He assents submis- 
sively to all the conditions which the latter imposes. And 
it is in this way that the Radical tone of Parliament has, 
during the last fifteen years, risen abruptly above the level 
of the average of the electorate, and that the new type of 
English M. P. has been engendered, who is always ready to 
go ahead, without knowing exactly where he is going and 
where he will stop, or even if he will stop.1 The result is 


1A story is told of a candidate who, after having given one pledge after 
another at a public meeting, was asked by one of the audience if he was pre- 
pared to vote for the repeal of the provisions of chapter xx of the Book of 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 607 





that the English Parliament sustains injury in the “two con- 
ditions which,” according to Bagehot, “are essential to the 
bare possibility of parliamentary government,” and which are 
“the extrinsic independence” of the representatives and “the 
inherent moderation” which should prevail in the House. 

The diminution of the responsibility, of the independence, 
and of the dignity of the men returned to the House of Com- 
mons has not failed to impair the relations of the Members 
with the party leaders such as Cabinet government presup- 
poses. This exceedingly delicate instrument represents a sort 
of see-saw, which works by a series of “actions and reactions 
between the Ministry and the Parliament” (Bagehot), in which 
the chiefs lead without commanding and the Members follow 
without being dragged. The right and the power of the 
Members to revolt at any moment against those who lead 
them, and the authority with which tradition and the essence 
of the party system have clothed the latter, maintained be- 
tween both the equilibrium which ensured the working of the 
government and preserved the freedom of the assembly. This 
equilibrium is now destroyed in favour of the leaders. For- 
merly, especially when almost the whole House was recruited 
in the same social sphere, the leader of the party was only 
primus inter pares; now he is a general in command of an 
army. He barely consults his staff, the front bench, and 
practically confines his confidences to an inner circle of a 
few lieutenants. All the rest of the army simply receives 
marching orders. Heno longer takes the advice, as formerly, 
of this or that leading Member, who served as an intermediary 
between the leaders and the main body of their adherents. 
These intermediate ranks have disappeared. 

The leaders have mounted higher inside Parliament because 
the prestige of the Members has been lowered outside it. 


Exodus. ‘‘Certainly,’’ he replied at once, without having even caught the 
end of the sentence, ‘‘I shall have no objection.’’ The hall was convulsed 
with laughter. The candidate, disconcerted, bent over the chairman of 
the meeting to ask him what was the matter. ‘‘ Nothing,’ replied the latter 
placidly, ‘‘ you have only just pledged yourself to repeal the Ten Command- 
ments.”’ , 

1 Cf. Montesquieu, l’ Esprit des lois, Book II, Chap. IV, on the intermediate 
ranks necessary in a monarchy to keep it at an equal distance from the des- 
potic State and the popular State. 


608 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rTuirp part 





Raised above the levelled crowd of M.P.’s, the leaders now 
lean directly on the great mass of voters, whose feelings of 
loyalty go straight to the leaders over the heads of the Mem- 
bers. . This last effect is due both to the action of the Caucus, 
which undermines the voter’s respect for the M. P., and to 
other factors of a more general nature, such as the spread of 
knowledge and the development of communications and chan- 
nels of information. Being more enlightened, the voter is 
more alive to his power of returning the Member, and at the 
same time he no longer wants the local representative to shape 
his political views by; thanks to the Press and to the tele- 
graph, which place him, so to speak, in immediate communi- 
cation with the great leader of the party, he can get his politi- 
cal supplies from him direct, just as, in the material sphere, he 
gets his stock of groceries, etc., in London from the “universal 
provider.” Always requiring to look up to some one, the 
English voter naturally transfers to the great leader the respect 
and devotion which he no longer has the opportunity or the 
need of bestowing on the Member for the division. Here, 
again, the “intermediate ranks ” to which Montesquieu refers 
are done away with or obliterated, the door being opened to a 
sort of popular Cesarism, with which the great chief of the 
party has become invested. No doubt the highly magnetic 
personalities of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield have 
powerfully contributed to set up the Cesarean supremacy of 
the leaders, but it was sufficiently developed by the situation 
which I have just described to enable their successors, who 
lacked the gift of impressing the popular imagination, to ob- 
tain the usufruct of this power over the masses. This being 
so, the elections have assumed the character of personal plebis- 
cites, each constituency voting not so much for this or that 
candidate as for Mr. Gladstone or against Lord Beaconsfield 
or Lord Salisbury. 

But this was not all; it was not only on the great occasions 
of going to the country that the leaders could take advantage 
of the popular loyalty, the current of which has been diverted 
towards them; they could henceforth use it as a propelling 
power in Parliament even in its daily life, and not only against 
their opponents, but also against their own adherents in the 
House who were not submissive enough, who exhibited inclina- 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 609 





t.ons towards resistance. This entirely new state of things has 
b3en brought about by the Caucus. Before its advent, under 
the old parliamentary system, the leader’s only means of 
bringing to reason Members inclined to revolt was a threat 
o; dissolution; and even that was available only for the leader 
o: the party in power; the leader of the Opposition was help- 
less against his followers whose loyalty was on the wane. 
Now under the Caucus, and thanks to it, in both parties re- 
fractory Members are called upon by their respective Associa- 
tions to fall in behind the leader, and they must comply if 
they want to be re-elected. Thus, in the intimate relations 
between the parliamentary chief and his followers, there has 
been imported from outside a regular intimidation agency, 
which makes the Members, for the nonce, simple puppets on 
the parliamentary stage. 

The more or less discreet way —and it has not been at all 
discreet at certain periods —in which this means of pressure 
on the conduct of the Members of the House of Commons is 
employed, does not prevent it from being a recognized weapon 
in the arsenal of the leaders. If formerly there were a few 
extremely rare instances of attempts at extraconstitutional 
pressure directed by the leaders against the M. P.’s, they 
occurred only in the form of irregular appeals addressed to the 
masses in public meetings, and even then they were regarded 
as nothing less than a scandal and as an insult to the first 
principles of parliamentary government. When in 1866, in 
face of the cool reception given by the House to the Reform 
Bill brought in by the Liberal Ministry, Mr. Gladstone 
attended, in the parliamentary recess, a great meeting at 
Liverpool in order to influence public opinion in favour of 
the Bill, he was severely taken to task in the House, when 
it met again; “I say,” cried a Liberal ex-Minister, who made 
hiniself the spokesman of his colleagues’ disapproval, “it is 
unprecedented in the history of Parliament that a Minister 
should go down to the provinces and there endeavour to excite 
agitation in favour of his own Bill... and make a speech 
in disparagement of the House of which he is himself the 
leader.” 1 Nowadays the pressure on the M. P.’s, exerted in 
a scientific way, is no longer a subject for scandal, and a leader 


1 Hansard, Vol. CLXXXVII, p. 1859, speech by Horsman. 
VOL. I—2Rk 


610 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rturrp part 





who wishes to give them a sharp touch of the spur is no longer 
in danger of offending against the rules of decorum by com- 
promising himself in person. 

But all-powerful as the great party leaders have become, 
they cannot themselves escape the influence of the Caucus, 
especially on the Liberal side. Obliged to pay a price for the 
support given them by the popular Organization, they inevi- 
tably have to submit to its pressure themselves in their legis- 
lative functions, so that the freedom of movement of the 
parliamentary leaders is not complete either. The famous 
Newcastle Programme is and will long remain a conspicuous 
proof of this. Having accepted this programme from the 
‘“‘Tiberal Federation ” without enthusiasm, the official leaders 
of the party have since then dragged it about like a convict’s 
chain. 

No doubt the supreme power of binding and loosing, 
which belongs to public opinion even in the parliamentary 
sphere, still subsists, but the play of this great regulator is 
also impaired by the intervention of the Caucus. Indeed, 
opinion is supposed, apart from the elections in which it holds 
formal court, to supply the M. P.’s and the parliamentary 
leaders with a permanent source of inspiration, and at the 
same time to exercise a continuous control overthem. Reveal- 
ing itself independently of all constitutional channels, this 
twofold power guides and constrains at one time the leaders, 
when they are too timorous or too autocratic, at another 
their adherents, when too prone to obedience or, again, in- 
clined to be restive. But to enable this power of opinion, 
which is eminently subtle in its nature and indeterminate in 
its essence, to make itself felt, there must be complete freedom 
for opinion to manifest itself in its varied and irregular forms 
and to come straight up to the doors of Parliament, and, for 
those who are in Parliament, the fewest possible impediments 
to the delicate task of catching the fluctuating views of the 
multitude. In interposing on behalf of opinion between it 
and Parliament, to demonstrate, to proclaim, or even to 
intimidate, the Caucus rather hindered their power of recip- 
rocal penetration. It accomplished this sometimes through its 
anxiety to safeguard the positions of the parliamentary leaders 
of its choice; at others owing to the crudeness of its means 


EIGHTH CHAP. } SUMMARY 611 





for probing public opinion, to which it was reduced by the 
mechanical character of its organization and its methods. By 
developing sham manifestations of opinion, such as meetings 
and demonstrations arranged behind the scenes, capable of 
conveying rather a deceptive idea of the real views of the 
masses, the Caucus has introduced a new element of uncer- 
tainty into the gauging of opinion, and has therefore lessened 
its power of inspiring public men and, consequently, its power 
of controlling them (which in reality are one and the same 
thing and are distinguishable only in logic). The authority 
of opinion not being able to bear regularly and with its full 
weight on parliamentary relations, the equilibrium of party 
government, destroyed inside the House of Commons, has no 
chance of being set right from outside by the only power 
capable of doing it. Thus, through the intervention of the 
Caucus, the three great springs of parliamentary government — 
the independence of representatives, the elasticity of the leader- 
ship, and that of the relations between Parliament and public 
opinion — have been weakened, to the lowering of Parliament 
and the deterioration of its efficacy. 

True, it is agreed, and rightly, that this result is the general 
effect of what is called, in ordinary parlance, the democratic 
movement. But it is always well not to forget that the 
“democratic movement” is not an entity; it is only an abstract 
term to denote the resultant of manifold forces which act in 
political society, under extremely varied and partly contra- 

dictory impulses. And it would be only possible to get a 
clear idea of the process which goes by the name of democratic 
by singling out the movements composing it. The Caucus 
has been one of them in England, and it has been so far 
from producing the effects referred to by itself, that even in 
the course of this work I have often taken care, in order 
not to distort the perspective, to replace the action of the 
Caucus within the general sphere of English political life, of 
the evolution of society, of humanity even. No, the Caucus 
has not had a monopoly in the deterioration of parliamentary 
government which I have just brought out, no more than in 
the other unquestionably genuine political effects which I have 
been led by my enquiry, in all honesty, to enter in its balance- 
sheet. The Caucus has, it is true, not invented them from 


612 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES  [rnirp part 





beginning to end, but it has developed the elements of them; 
it has, in a way, systematized and crystallized them. In that, 
too, it has only lent a helping hand; for in the highly com- 
plex life of a community the varied forces which make up 
its movement resemble the contents of the solar spectrum, in 
which the colours composing the light each react on its neigh- 
bour. But just as these colours, which form so many shades, 
and which all blend in the whiteness of light, can be decom- 
posed and clearly distinguished by every eye not afflicted with 
daltonism, so it is possible to assign their quota to the agencies 
at work in the community. No doubt this quota can never be 
defined with absolute precision, but the social investigator is in 
no way bound down to Shylock’s bond: “ Nor cut thou less, nor 
more, but just a pound of flesh;” for it is not matter that he 
dissects; he discriminates between movements vibrating in the 
social ether, the impression of which is to be conveyed to the 
intelligence. When the social undulations, after being long 
obscure, reach a certain degree of intensity, then they are 
brought together to make them more clearly perceptible to the 
intellectual vision, like rays in a focus, under the particular 
central image produced by the movement, which represents 
their source and which in reality is still more their reflector. 
Subject to this limitation, which is understood of every investi- 
gation into a living society, the “Caucus” has been in English 
political life the source and the agent of the effects described, 
and subject to this limitation again there is nothing to tone 
down in the picture drawn in these pages of its dissolvent 
action. 


VII 


The reality itself undertook to soften the lines of the picture. 
The Caucus had set out with the intention of pushing the 
democratic principle to its extreme logical consequences in 
the extraconstitutional sphere, but it was not really applied 
in all its logical strictness; it encountered various obstacles, 
most of which proceeded from the fact that the old social con- 
ditions of England had not completely disappeared and that 
the old influences were not annihilated. There are still plenty 
of them left. And while often representing what was least 
attractive in the old order of things, these conditions and 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 613 





these influences assert, as against the Caucus, the power of 
the living forces of society, which prevents the government 
of the country from being a machine pure and simple, which 
leaves room in it for the individual steeped in prejudice and 
selfish calculation, but also subject to responsibility. Wealth 
still has a fascination for the English mind; a man who is 
rich, and who makes a proper use of his money, has more 
weight with the masses than men who represent nothing but 
labels or formulas. ‘Territorial influence is far from being a 
historical reminiscence; at elections a good landlord is readily 
followed, whatever his politics are, even in parts of the country 
where the process of emancipation from the power of the landed 
proprietors has made greater progress than elsewhere —in 
Scotland, for instance. In the south of England the old 
county families are still particularly looked up to, for the sole 
reason of their antiquity. They are a sort of institution. On 
the same ground the Church, in spite of the continuous weaken- 
ing of religious beliefs, is still a living tradition, serving as 
a rallying-point for many a man who has almost ceased to 
have recourse to its ministry and who does not attend its 
places of worship. The prestige of social rank has no doubt 
declined, but a lord is still the figure invested with the most 
charm for the public imagination; he is not even distasteful 
to the Radicalism of the working classes, they “like a lord”; 
according to Mr. Gladstone, “the love of freedom itself is 
hardly stronger in England than the love of aristocracy; as 
Sir W. Molesworth once said to me of the force of this feeling 
with the people: ‘It is a religion.’”? And it is not only to 
gratify their imagination, but in daily life, for the defence of 
their interests, the lower orders prefer a man of rank as leader. 
Labour representation in Parliament, for instance, meets with 
most obstacles from the workmen themselves; it is not the 


1 This point may perhaps be illustrated by the following passage from a 
letter from one of my correspondents, an ardent young Radical of very 
democratic origin, who bears a well-known name, and who was endeavouring, 
as honorary secretary of a Liberal Association, to wrest a backward rural 
constituency from the old influences: ‘‘ ‘The rule of Lords and squires or clergy 
and farmers, harsh and cruel as it often is, is still tempered by many tradi- 
tional feelings which the new ‘wire-pullers and caucus-mongers’ cannot 
possess.”’ 

2“*The County Franchise,” The Nineteenth Century, November, 1877. 


614 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp Part 





fact that Members of Parliament are unpaid which prevents 
the workmen from sending comrades to the House, for a 
pecuniary sacrifice of a halfpenny or a farthing a week sub- 
mitted to by each of them would ensure the Member of their 
choice an adequate allowance; but they do not care about it, 
they would rather have a gentleman for their Member. The 
hierarchical spirit, the class spirit, still lves in English 
society; the English people has not yet ceased to be what 
Bagehot called “a deferential nation,” “politically deferen- 
tial.” 

But the deference is not paid solely to rank or wealth. I have 
mentioned among the claims which mark out a parliamentary 
candidate for the suffrages of his fellow-citizens his skill as 
an “athlete,” as a cricketer. Many a non-English reader has 
noted this, perhaps, with a pitying smile, giving thanks to 
God that he and his are not as these men. Underneath its odd 
aspect this homage rendered to the “athlete” by voters is in 
reality a tribute to the moral qualities of the individual, to his 
courage, to his energy, to his will; in a word, to the man apart 
from and in spite of the conventional labels of “Tory” or 
“Liberal.” It is an exaggerated, distorted form of a general 
tendency, inherent in the English mind, to consider his private 
character, his conduct, in the public man. The value which the 
Englishman attaches to these creates a feeling of esteem, almost 
of admiration, even for the superficial moral qualities which 
constitute “respectability,” and which provide him with a 
criterion, inadequate and narrow no doubt, but protecting 
him from cynicism in his representatives and in himself, and 
often forming a sort of barrier against adventurers, against 
politicians of the baser sort. Mental superiority does not on 
that account lose its rights in the Englishman’s eyes; the 
Englishman, and especially the lower-class man, bows down 
before it without misgiving or jealousy, whether he finds it in 
a man of higher social rank or in an equal. In the work- 
shop the judgment of a comrade who is felt to be superior 
influences all and is followed by all; this comrade is, perhaps, 
a drunkard, but in his sober intervals his opinion commands 
respect. 

This almost innate respect of the race for the pre-eminent 
qualities of rank, of character, and of intellect, makes the 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 615 








Englishman particularly ready to accept the leadership of 
men, without troubling his head about formulas and conven- 
tions. “I know no one,” said an old Member of Parliament 
to me, “so willing to be guided as an Englishman; and I 
myself,” he added, “I am quite willing to be led.” Let but 
the person of the leader inspire him with confidence, and he 
is devoted to him for good, throughout, perhaps, the varied 
vicissitudes of his fortunes. One of the men who has done 
the most to destroy the old leadership, by introducing the 
Caucus, has learnt this to his advantage and his glory; Mr. 
Joseph Chamberlain, turned out of the Radical party on the 
occasion of the Home Rule Bill of 1886, has defied all the 
hosts of the enemy, including that of the Gladstonian Caucus, 
by the sole power of his personality ; by his sheer weight he 
carried all the Midland counties at one general election after 
another, in 1886, in 1892, in 1895, marching from victory to 
victory ; it was not so much a victory of Unionism as a tri- 
umph of leadership. A still more imposing spectacle has been 
furnished up till recently by the enormous personal ascendancy 
of Mr. Gladstone. In his proud and loyal devotion to the 
leader, many a one of his adherents will not, even if he can, 
put his person on one side in order to grasp the notion of the 
cause which he defends, of the party which he leads.!| Mani- 
fested with more or less intensity, according to the persons or 
the circumstances, or subsisting only in a latent condition, 
these feelings were a counterpoise or a check to the formal 
authority of the Caucus. The extent of its power varied a 
good deal in different parts of the country, according to the 
greater or less amount of social leadership prevailing there in 
its various aspects. In a general way it may be said that in 
places where social rank and the Church have held out, the 
Caucus, as representative of the formal authority of the party, 
has had, comparatively speaking, little success, while in locali- 
ties where the ground was more level its task has been greatly 
facilitated. ; 

Besides the exceptional prestige of illustrious chiefs and 


1] asked a working-man at Birmingham what party he belonged to. ‘I 
follow Mr. Chamberlain,’’ he replied. ‘‘Then,’’ I said, ‘‘ you are a Liberal 
Unionist.”” He merely repeated with an air of calm resolution, ‘‘I follow Mr. 
Chamberlain.”’ 


616 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rxrrp part 





the social leadership, besides the feelings of a traditional kind, 
the Caucus has had to face personal and local influences under 
yet another aspect, that of material interests, of preoccupa- 
tions about “bread and butter,” which on many occasions were 
even its accomplices in the struggle with the time-honoured 
social influences, owing to their power of severing the old 
ties which they find in their path. But in this dissolving 
process interests make no distinctions; they disregard all 
political conventions as well, whatever their origin and their 
pretensions, aristocratic or democratic, reactionary or revolu- 
tionary. Questions of labour, of wages, good or bad relations 
with the master, take precedence with many English workmen 
over all the political considerations which it is desired to 
impress on them, and alone decide their vote. With other 
electoral varieties, it is anxiety about their business, hopes or 
apprehensions raised by this or that legislative measure, 
which incline them to one or the other party on the polling- 
day. Interests of a selfish, occasionally perhaps even of 
a sordid kind, they present just as many living forces hold- 
ing in check the formal force of the Caucus, which is often 
obliged to come to terms with them, or, if it cannot or will 
not do so, to court a defeat. We have been eye-witnesses, so 
to speak, of this; we have come upon the actual operation of 
these forces in the choice of the candidate, where we have seen 
a whole string of personal influences, local considerations of 
every kind, religious passions, social influences, private inter- 
ests, collective interests of groups, rise in front of the 
Caucus; and the latter, having stepped on the political stage 
with the boast that it would sweep away all these “rotten 
influences” in a trice, has had to stoop to negotiations, to 
compromises, and to bargains, or run the risk of a defeat, and 
often of a crushing one, leaving somewhat overhasty reformers 
to once more reap the advice: Et nunc erudimini. 

But in addition to obstacles coming from outside, the power 
of the Caucus is subject to limitations of an internal nature, 
which are due to the relative inadequacy of its personnel 
and to the slenderness of its material resources. Under 
universal or well-nigh universal suffrage, a political organi- 
zation which aspires to capture it and hold its own amid 
hostile forces, of which the apathy of its own adherents is not 


EIGHTH CHAP. ] SUMMARY 617 





the least, requires a great deal of money, or other resources 
capable of stimulating zeal, of remunerating services, of re- 
warding devotion. The English party organizations are not 
very rich, especially that of the Liberal party; the voluntary 
contributions in money which feed their budget are not 
excessive. The favours which the party in power can dis- 
tribute are somewhat limited, consisting principally of honor- 
ary titles of different kinds, and of very few places, for the 
service of the State is almost entirely beyond the reach of the 
politicians. It is true that the English organizations raise 
the wind pretty largely with “social consideration,” but the 
purchasing power of this currency, while considerable in 
England, has its limits. In this respect, again, the Liberal 
Organization is in a great state of inferiority to its Tory 
rival. This scantiness of material resources, which hampers 
the activity of the organizations, and the passive resistance 
of their environment, which is generally apathetic, inevitably 
paralyzes the energy of the representatives of the Caucus, 
especially in the interval between the elections. A good many 
of them, too, are prevented from displaying excessive eager- 
ness in the service of the party machine by the comparative 
freedom of their mind, to wit, on the Liberal side, where there 
are actually paid agents who are restive even under the press- 
ure of the central Organization, and who have not yet turned 
into perfect automatons. This is especially true of the agents 
who belong by their age and their education to the old genera- 
tion. Thus, within the four corners of the Organization itself, 
the personal element, alike from its strength and its weakness, 
does add to the counterpoise offered to the machine of the 
Caucus by the personal, human influences of a general char- 
acter which are at work in the community. At the summit 
of the political world, in Parliament, which is composed, in a 
still fairly considerable degree, of men belonging to the old 
political personnel, their character, as well as their position in 
the constituencies, also have the effect of deadening the blows 
of the Caucus. The final upshot, then, is that the nihilist 
work of the Caucus is attenuated in several of its logical con- 
sequences, that in the exercise of its power it is still subject 
to many servitudes. One cannot, therefore, give more than a 
qualified endorsement to the view of a celebrated English 


618 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruin part 





publicist, when he informs foreigners that the Caucus is en- 
throned on the ruins of the old British Constitution.? 


WET 


But it must be admitted at the same time that among the 
divergent forces which have just been reviewed, those which 
hold the Caucus in check are, if anything, on the decline; 
that in their perpetual contests the chances are rather on the 
side of the centrifugal forces favouring the formalism and 
the mechanicalness which the Caucus tends to introduce into 
English political life under the auspices of democracy. 

The personal influences of rank, of character, and of know- 
ledge, which serve as a rallying centre in political life, which 
by their intrinsic force attract mankind and draw them into 
their orbit, find it more and more difficult to come to the sur- 
face. Many facts, both of a material and moral order, combine 
to produce this result. The steady growth of the towns, into 
which most of the population is flocking, makes the inhabi- 
tants strangers to one another; their contact is only superficial, 
and their power of reacting on each other is impeded. This 
general effect of contemporary civilization is aggravated in 
the great English centres by the habit which well-to-do people 
have of taking up their abode in separate parts of the town, 
in the “ West End,” for instance, in “residential suburbs,” 
or even outside it, five, ten, or fifteen miles off. Manufactur- 
ers, merchants, rich shopkeepers, lawyers, doctors, — one and 
all desert the towns, spending only a part of the day in 
their offices or their chambers. ‘The small folk are left to 
themselves, or are even confined to separate districts. Here, 
for instance, is a central ward of Manchester, in which, out 
of 2488 occupiers of tenements, there are only 13 who really 
reside there, who sleep there; out of the £230,832 rateable 


1 «The Roman imposed his institutions with arms upon a conquered world; 
a willing world has adopted the institutions which had their original seat at 
Westminster. But the British Constitution now means little more than the 
omnipotence of the House of Commons. The immense edifice is still styled 
the palace; but the King who now dwells in the palace is the sovereign people, 
or perhaps rather, the sovereign caucus ’”’ (Goldwin Smith, 4A Trip to England, 
Lond. 1892, p. 120; a very remarkable tiny volume, intended to serve as a 
guide-book for American tourists visiting England, and giving a bird’s-eye 
view of contemporary England in its monumental, social, and political aspects). 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 619 
value of these tenements, the 13 residents represent only 
£3286; in another ward, out of 1223 occupiers there are only 
175 householders, the rateable value of whose dwellings does 
not amount to more than £6923. When they have made 
their pile, the “better-class” people break even the slender 
ties which attach them to their city, thus creating a still 
wider gulf between them and the indigent classes. Even 
democratic Scotland does not escape this harmful process. 
Thus at Glasgow middle-aged people can still recollect the 
time when there was no West End, when rich and poor 
lived side by side, mixed together, went to the same church, 
sent their children to the same school.. The city was 
composed of five independent boroughs, each of which had 
its bailie and was a centre of local life. At the present 
moment there is far less intercourse between the various 
classes; the West End has its churches and its well-equipped 
schools for the rich, and the East End has its own humble 
and modest ones for those who lack the good things of this 
world. Urban absenteeism, which had been conspicuous for 
a considerable time,! is increasing every day, thanks to the 
extraordinary facility of communication with the suburbs, and, 
like its historical prototype, the absenteeism of landowners, in- 
evitably produces mischieveus effects, not only from the social 
point of view, by accentuating the separation of classes, with 
all its dangerous consequences, but also from the political 
point of view. It withdraws from the political service of the 
community, from duties towards their fellow-citizens, men who 
through their social position and their enlightenment would 
be best equipped for the discharge of them. But even those 
who would like to put their shoulders to the wheel have now 
much fewer facilities for impressing their neighbours, owing 
to this material extension of town life, which creates huge 
agglomerations where a man has more difficulty in coming to 
the front, far more than twenty or five and twenty years ago, 
were he even of the calibre of the men who arose, for instance, 
in the municipality of Birmingham during the decade from 





1 Close observers directed their attention to urban absenteeism at a pretty 
early stage. Thus in the Church Congress at Wolverhampton, in 1867, a 
very elaborate report was submitted on absenteeism in the Midlands. See 
the abstract of this report in the Birmingham Daily Post, 5th October, 1867. 


620 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 
1870-1880. And the reader is aware how greatly this diffi- 
culty of a natural kind, so to speak, has been increased by 
the action of the Caucus. To enter local public life you must 
now have a passport from a political party, you must don the 
party livery to serve interests with which party politics have 
nothing to do; and even then, the excessive subdivision of the 
Organization, created by the formal application of the demo- 
cratic principle, transfers influence to the local mediocrity, 
who wields it amid conditions little calculated to enhance the 
prestige of the leadership. 

The “deference,” the supply of which in English society 
seemed even larger than that of the coal below the surface 
of England, is dwindling, and will assuredly continue to 
dwindle, under the levelling process which has been at work 
in England since the industrial revolution. The democratic 
Organization of the Caucus will continue to contribute to 
this result in a marked degree, to undermine the hierarchical 
feeling pervading political relations, even in the circles which 
are most imbued with it,— in those of Toryism. In all proba- 
bility those Tories who flattered themselves that the demo- 
cratic Organization introduced into their party would not lead 
to serious consequences, that it could not prevail against the 
old traditional feeling, will be undeceived. The common mis- 
take of the Conservatives is to deny or underestimate the 
efficacy of political forms, as that of the Radicals is to exag- 
gerate it. Even sham representative assemblies are never set 
up with impunity. And in twenty years or so the old- 
fashioned Tories, if there are any left, may be able to say to 
the Liberals, from whom they borrowed the Caucus, like the 
Turks to the Austrians who taught their old Serb subjects 
European drill: “Neighbours, what have you done with our 
raya?” ? To sum up, the political leadership, as a natural 





1 Perhaps the Birmingham of the present day would itself furnish proof of 
this, if it had to begin over again. Cf. The Progress of Modern Birmingham, 
by Dr. Crespi, who says: ‘“‘ Birmingham is getting unwieldy, and its popula- 
tion is much scattered, but a generation ago it was a more manageable, and 
in some respects gratifying, field for the display of great abilities than the 
metropolis; a clever man was not lost in it; he was the common possession of 
his townsmen, and within their easy reach. It is open to question whether 
any one will again make a great and general position in Birmingham ”’ (Na- 
tional Review, May, 1889). 

2 Servia, after being conquered to a great extent by Joscph II. in 1788, was 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 621 





link between the members of the community, founded partly 
on tradition, partly on the legitimate action of one man on 
another, on the confidence and devotion inspired by personal 
worth, this leadership, which has already received so many 
shocks, is likely to grow weaker still. 

At the same time a shrinkage is observed, in social life, of 
certain special sources the current of which served to unite 
men into important groups, and, as a consequence, to provide 
elements for the political leadership; as, for instance, the 
solidarity of the great religious bodies. This is giving way 
under the action of tolerance and religious indifference, which 
have made great progress in English society during the last 
quarter of a century. The passions and the jealousies of the 
churches have lost a vast deal of their acuteness; people are 
no longer, or far less, anxious to know if their neighbour goes 
to church or to chapel; no attention is paid to it in social 
relations. This state of the public mind benefits Dissent, for 
instance, greatly and legitimately, but it also robs it of its 
social cohesion, which made it into a sort of freemasonry even 
in political life, where it formed, according to Mr. Gladstone’s 
expression, the backbone of the Liberal party. The joints of 
this backbone are beginning to get dislocated. In rural dis- 
tricts the old antagonism has still enough of its keenness to 
maintain the cohesion, but in the towns the dissolving process 
makes great strides, and is not a little helped by the social 
ambitions which are infecting the richer members of the Non- 
conformist sects and making them keep to themselves amid 
their coreligionists, even in the places of worship, which they 
‘are prone to transform into chapels of a few select families. 
Again, indifference to religion in general, which is increas- 
ing by the side of and in spite of the undeniable successes 
achieved by the churches in the last half-century, contributes 
in its turn to enfeeble the living forces of society and to 
swell the conventional forces. 


given back to the Turks three years afterwards by the successor of Joseph IL., 
but during the Austrian occupation the Serbs had time to get a notion of free- 
dom, to acquire independent ways, and the Ottoman commissioner who took 
over the occupied territory, seeing a Serb detachment march out of a fortress 
well armed, and manceuvring like the Imperial troops, exclaimed with min- 
gled astonishment and alarm, ‘‘ Neighbours, what have you done with our 
raya!” 


622 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rurrp part 





Moreover, a phenomenon is arising which is at once the 
effect and the stimulant of those which have just been 
described,— the political apathy which is creeping over so- 
ciety. “Politics is no longer popular” is the unanimous 
impression of people in the business. In spite of the eco- 
nomic commotions which are the peculiar feature of our 
age, material comfort is too great and too widely diffused 
among the English people for arousing their combative 
instincts, or even for keeping them interested in the ques- 
tions which fill up the existence of the politicians. The 
middle class is retiring from the political arena, deliber- 
ately, so to speak, obeying alike its feelings of selfishness 
and its amour propre wounded by the political advent of the 
lower social strata. It looks as if this class had exhausted its 
ardour in the great battles which it fought one after another 
in the first half of the century. It has no longer any griev- 
ances to urge or claims to keep alive in the political and social 
sphere. The fire which burned brightly in the hearts of the 
preceding generations is but a faint gleam in the present 
generation. The threat of Socialist demands is not fraught 
with danger imminent enough to bring the middle-class con- 
' tingents into the field, and it is loud enough to make a good 
many of its members still more timorous and to plunge them 
still more deeply into their selfishness. No doubt they still 
have a fine place in the political procession, but it is more 
by vis inertiae that they move in it; they have no impulse 
of their own, and even this automatic participation is decreas- 
ing; in the growing number of abstentions at elections they 
probably furnish the most considerable proportion. While. 
the cultivated classes tend to turn aside from politics, the new 
strata of political society show no eagerness to fill the vacant 
space; public spirit is not developing sufficiently among the 
masses, to a great extent- through the fault of the Caucus. 
At the same time that it assists the selfishness of the middle 
classes in discouraging their efforts by the democratic preten- 
sions of which it has assumed the championship, it withholds 
from the masses real political education calculated to broaden 
and stimulate the mind; it keeps it back, offering them in its 
place a wretched substitute, which has the property of deliver- 
ing them more easily into its hands. Thus is witnessed alike 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 625 





an abatement of interest in politics in the community, and a 
diminution of the moral and material facilities for the rise 
and the popularity of the best men and for rallying the masses 
around them, side by side with a decline in the readiness of 
the educated and well-to-do classes to come forward and put 
their shoulders to the wheel. 

While these combined tendencies reveal the dawn of a sepa- 
ration of society as a whole from the small minority given up 
to politics, under a constitution which now denies hardly any 
one the power of exerting his influence on public affairs, in 
the narrower sphere of politics an important phenomenon is 
appearing: the political parties are more and more losing 
their distinctive characteristics. The political controversies 
which have of late set the two historic parties by the ears, 
however great the violence of the combatants may often have 
been, were not of a kind to mark a new line of permanent 
separation between them, or to prevent the obliteration of the 
old one which had been going on since 1846. The effect was that 
in the matter of principles, of policies, the two parties drew 
closer to each other. No longer representing clearly defined 
opposing principles, no longer having a monopoly, the one of 
progress, the other of reaction, the one of solicitude for the 
masses, the other of aristocratic or capitalist privilege, the 
parties as such tend to become simple aggregates, drawn 
together, by the attractive force of a leader, for the conquest 
or the preservation of power. In a word, parallel with the 
separation of society from politics, are seen indications of the 
divorce. of politics from principles. When these last have 
disappeared, the only vital system of the parties will be a 
mechanical organization, all the more powerful the more it 
will be spread over the country, the more widely it will cover 
the constituencies with its network. In other words, the par- 
ties will live only by and thanks to a machine like the Caucus. 
The latter will not only have helped to drive back the living 
forces of the political community, to make a vacuum in it, but 
will also install itself in the empty citadel, and almost as a 
matter of right. 

Stepping into the Be of living society, the party organi- 
zations, instead of being an instrument, a means, will become 
an object in themselves, to which everything will be sub- 


624 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [rarrp part 





ordinated. Deriving their right to existence from more or 
less arbitrary conventions, from labels which will distinguigh 
one from the other, the rival organizations, without even 
obeying sordid preoccupations, but from an instinct of self- 
preservation, will make all the relations of political life bend 
to the blind formalism of its conventions, in defiance of the 
real interests at stake. From this point of view the trans- 
formation of local elections into political party contests, and 
the deterioration of municipal government which it is already 
beginning to produce, offer a warning the gravity of which 
cannot be overrated. But in addition to this, the factitious 
character of the organizations will not allow them to eom- 
mand much disinterested devotion for long; people will serve 
them only in the hope of making use of them, on the basis of 
do ut des, and they will witness the development of an ever- 
increasing mercenary element within their ranks. In this 
connection the life of the Caucus has revealed an alarming 
symptom of late years; the voluntary aid given to the organi-. 
zations is decreasing and being replaced by paid services, even 
when the law expressly forbids it, as in the case of the election 
canvass. There is no longer sufficient “enthusiasm” among 
the caucus-men of both parties; it is money which comes first, 
and this fact accounts to some extent for the great success 
at the last general election of the wealthiest party. No 
doubt the comparative slenderness of the pecuniary resources 
of the organizations is a fortunate obstacle to the develop- 
ment in their midst of the type of mercenary politicians, but 
it is not sufficient to allay apprehensions. The growing habit 
of distributing subordinate municipal offices as a reward for 
election work is there to confirm them. The measure, so often 
discussed of late, for giving a fixed allowance to Members of 
Parliament, is also somewhat calculated to foster these mis- 
givings. The payment of Members would in itself be perfeetly 
equitable and useful in enabling people of small means to 
enter Parliament, and all the less unjustifiable because, as 
things now stand, the title of M.P. is already a source of 
gain for a good many Members, procuring them advantages 
in business, well-paid directorships of joint-stock companies, 
so much so that not a few try to get into Parliament simply 
in order to forward their pecuniary interests. The difference 


\ 


\ 


EIGHTH CHAP. | SUMMARY 





\ 


between them and the legally paid Members would be, per- \ 


haps, that while the former make money out of their title of | 


M.P. to provide luxuries for their wives and daughters, among 
the latter a certain number would get the daily bread of their 
family by their parliamentary position. But it is not less 
certain that payment of Members would provide the organi- 
zations which distribute seats in the Legislature with a war 
fund, the importance of which would not be measured by its 
actual amount, but by the rival appetites which it would excite, 
by the eager deSires which it would let loose. The com- 
mand of these large resources would give the organizations a 
formidable hold on the whole political system, and attract into 
their ranks, introducing many of them into public offices, men 
bent solely on personal gain. 

By the side of these indications and hypotheses pointing to 
or foreshadowing the upward movement of the organizations 
which are forwarding a mechanical formalism, a few symptoms 
can no doubt be discerned which seem likely to hamper this 
movement, but their significance is still of a very relative kind. 
There are signs, at present slight, of a tendency among the 
voters to throw off the tyrannical authority of the party, to 
resent the attempts of the organizations on their political 
conscience. The agents of the Caucus begin to complain that 
“canvassing is becoming worse every year,” “they will not 
tell their politics,” “they object to be canvassed.” The 

‘advance of knowledge develops a critical spirit in the elec- 
torate, while the decline in the standard of the caucus-men 
lowers the prestige of the firms which they represent, and the 
conduct of the rival parties suggests to many people that these 
parties are much of a muchness, one as bad or as good as the 
other. But very often it is these voters on their guard who 
withdraw from politics and leave the field open to the Caucus. 
The Socialist propaganda, in its turn, is systematically engaged 
in severing the old party ties, without, however, providing a 
refuge from party tyranny, for the socialist organizations, the 
LL. P. or the Democratic Federation, imprison their adher- 
ents in a formalism not less, and even more, despotic than the 
old parties; in this respect the activity of the Socialists has 

_ only a negative value, by its dissolvent effect, as is probably 

_ the case with it in the general economy of contemporary social 

VOL. I—2 5s 


j 
£626 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTIES [ruirp part 





life of which it stirs up the stagnant waters. By enticing 
away the adherents of the organizations of the old parties, 
and by introducing a fresh element of uncertainty into their 
existence made up more or less of conventions, the Socialist 
activity eats away these parties, makes gaps in them. An 
analogous result will perhaps be produced by the break-up of 
the great natural aggregations which is beginning to show 
itself,— in Dissent, for instance. In tending to create a 
vacuum for the benefit of the Caucus, this disintegration may 
also be capable of producing a contrary effect, by dispersing 
the disciplined contingents which were ready to ally them- 
selves with the Caucus. But it is permissible to speculate 
whether in this connection the forces which favour the Caucus 
and those which create impediments to it will be evenly bal- 
anced; for the strength of formal and conventional forces 
invading a community lies not so much in the fighting power 
of their own contingents as in the weakness of those which 
they tend to supplant. 


In pointing out all the data and all the probabilities which 
indicate that the democratic formalism of the Caucus, leaning 
on the old convention of stereotyped parties, is launching 
English society on the decline of government by machine, it 
is not possible to consider the eventual consequences in other 
than a more or less hypothetical way. For on this decline 
there are still, as we have seen, many obstacles raised by the 
old manners and customs of the nation, objectionable as some 
of them may be in themselves from the modern standpoint, 
and which the democratic institutions installed in the English 
State have not yet obliterated. But there is already in exist- 
ence a political community sprung from the very loins of Eng- 
land, its own flesh and blood, and which, left to itself in a new 
world, has anticipated the development of the mother-country 
by repudiating several of its habits and letting democracy have 
free play, while keeping the substance of its political institu- 
tions. Pushing the representative and elective principle to 
its extreme consequences, this new political society has at an 
early stage permitted the rise within it of the Caucus, which, 
implanted in its levelled soil, has had a long career, free from 
the trammels which it still encounters in the “old country.” 





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